The
THEORY
OF
l(NOWLEDGE
by
Maurice Cornforth
LITTLE ,\'E\\' \\'ORLD PAPERBACKS 0328
52.75
The Theory
of Knowledge
By MAURICE CORNFORTH
®
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright © by INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS Co., !Ne., 1955
Third (revised) Edition© by Maurice Cornforth, 1963
First U.S. Edition, 1971
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Seventh printing 1983
Volume Three of the 3-volume
Dialectical Materialism: An Introduction
SBN 7178-0328-7
Printed in the United States of America
FOREWORD
HE
T
theory of knowledge1 i s concerned with questions
about ideas-their source, the way they reflect reality, the
way they are tested and developed, their role in social life.
These questions have always formed an important part of
philosophy.
In bourgeois philosophy the theory of knowledge has come
to occupy the firs t place, on the grounds that before any
philosophical conclusions can be drawn about anything what­
ever we must first make certain of what we really do know and
the foundations on which we know it. But bourgeois philoso­
phers have generally approached the subject in the most
abstract possible way. Taking nothing else for granted than
the bare existence of the individual human mind, they have
asked how knowledge could be born and grow up in it. But
since human individuals, and still less their minds, do not exist
in a void, this kind of inquiry was bound to raise unanswerable
questions and to remain comparatively sterile.
Marxism, on the other hand, considers that we ought to
study the subject more concretely, and to ask how ideas
actually arise, develop and are tested in the concrete condi­
tions of real human life, in the material life of society. This
volume is about how human consciousness actually arises and
develops. It tries to trace this process step by step from its
beginnings in the simple conditioned reflex, which is the basic
way in which an animal organism epters into active relation­
ship with the external world, up to the development of human
knowledge and human freedom.
1 Those who consider Gre�k a more philosophical language than English
call it epistemology, or sometimes gnoswlogy.
C O NTENTS
Part One. The Nature and Origin of the Mind
CHAP.
PAGE
MIND AND BODY
9
2
MIND AS PRODUCT AND REFLECTION OF MATTER
22
3
SOCIAL LABOUR AND SOCIAL THINKING
35
4
THOUGHT, LANGUAGE AND Lome
45
Part Two. The Development of Ideas
5
6
ABSTRACT IDEAS
57
loEOLOGY
66
7
IDEOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS
80
8
SCIENCE
93
9
SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM
114
Part Three. Truth and Freedom
JO
TRUTH
135
JJ
THE ROOTS OF KNOWLEDGE
1 48
12
THE GRO'WTH OF KNOWLEDGE
163
13
NECESSITY AND FREEDOM
180
14
THE' REALISATION OF FREEDOM
1 95
READING LIST
2og
•
Part One
THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND
Chapter One
MI N D AN D B O DY
Matter and Mind
may be connected with its body i t i s nevertheless di stinct and
Iseparable
from the body. According to thi s belief, the mind
T i s very commonly b elieved that however closely the mind
"animates" the body and makes use of the organs of the body
both to receive impressions of the external world and to act on
the external world; but its exi stence does not depend on that
of the body. Moreover, while in some of its activities the m ind
makes u se of the body, in other of its activities it does not. For
instance, the mind makes use of the body in its sensuou s
activities, but in its "purer'' intel lectual or spi ritual activities
it does not.
Thi s is in essence a very ancient conception. Thus som e
primitive peoples thin k of the soul as being a very fine vapour
-thi s is what the word "spiri t" originally meant-which
resides in the body but which can come out of it and lead an
independent exi stence. For example, the soul journeys out of
the body during sleep, i ssuing forth from the mouth. Again, the
wrong soul can sometimes get into the wrong body-a s in
"possession" : a lunatic or an epileptic is said to suffer from an
evil spirit having got into his body. And as part of thi s prim itive
conception of the soul there arises the conception of the sur­
vival of the sou l after death and also of the pre -ex istence of the
soul before birth.
Ideali st philosophical theories about the m ind are, in the
last analysis, only refinements and rationalisation s of such
superstitions.
Amongst such refinements and rationalisations i s the doc­
trine that mind and body are two distinct substances-
9
spiritual substance and material substance. Material substance,
or body, is extended, has weight, moves about in space.
Spiritual substance, or mind, thinks, knows, feels, desires. This
view is still very widely held. It is believed that such properties
as thinking, feel ing and so on are so absolutely different from
the properties of matter, that however closely our thinking and
feeling may be bound up with the state of our bodies, they
belong to an immaterial substance, the mind, which is distinct
from the body.
Idealist philosophers, who consider that the mind is separable
from the body, maintain that thoughts, feelings and so on are in
no sense products of any material process. If we think and feel
and act intelligently, for example, such behaviour is not to be
explained from the conditions of our material existence but
from the independent functioning of our minds. Admittedly,
the mind makes use of the bodily organs ; but intelligent
behaviour stems from the fact that the body is animated,
informed and controlled by an immaterial principle or a
spiritual being, the mind.
But such idealist theories, widespread as they are, have long
been offset by opposing materialist views. According to
materialism, so far from mind being separable from body, all
mental functions depend on their appropriate bodily organs
and cannot be exercised without them. All people's conscious
and intelligent activities can be traced back to material causes,
so that far from such activities being exclusive products of
mind, mind itself is a product-the highest product-of
matter.
Modern materialism, which is equipped with the results of
scientific investigations into the forms of organic life and with
the conception of evolution, is able to give a decisive answer
to the idealist conception of the mind. Mind is a product of
the evolutionary development of life. Living bodies which
have reached a certain level of development of the nervous
system, such as we find in animals, can and do develop forms of
consciousness ; and in the course of evolution this consciousness
eventually reaches the stage of thought, the activity of the
human brain. The mental functions, from the lowest to the
IO
highest, are functions of the body, functions of matter. Mind is
a product of matter at a high level of the organisation of
matter.
Once this is admitted, there is an end to the conception of
the mind or soul as separable from the body and capable of
leaving it and surviving it. A mind without a body is an absur­
dity. Mind does not exist in abstraction from body.
To say that mind does not exist in abstraction from body
is not, however, to say that mental processes do not exist or
that the mind of man is a myth. Of course, mind, conscious­
ness, thought, will, feeling, sensation and so on are real.
Materialism does not deny the reality of mind. What material­
ism does deny is that a thing called " the mind" exists separate
from the body. The mind is not a thing, or a substance, distinct
from the body.
This point can be illustrated by any example when we
ordinarily speak about " the mind". Philosophers and theo­
logians have imagined that the mind has an existence of its
own, and qualities and activities of its own, distinct from the
body. But nothing of the sort is ever implied in p ractical life
when we talk about the mind.
Suppose, for example, that you are asked, " Wh at's in your
mind?" Thi s means quite simply, "What are you thinking
about?" In other words, i t is a variant of the question, '"What
are you doing?" It does not in the least imply that there exists
a thing called your mind, distinct from your body.
Similarly, if you are told, " You have a first-rate mind",
or "You have a dirty mind", or "You ought to improve your
mind", all these remarks are understood as referring to certain
things which you normally do. And if you die, or if you are
hit on the head or in some other way suffer a disturbance of
the brain, then these remarks about your mind no longer apply.
For the activities to which they refer can then no longer be
performed, since the means of performing them have been
destroyed.
A man is endowed with mind, then, in so far as he thinks,
feels, desires and so on. But all these activities are activities,
functions, of the man, of a material being, an organised body,
II
dependent on appropriate bodily organs. Given a body with
the appropriate organi sation and the appropriate conditions of
life, these activities arise and develop. Destroy the body or
its organs, and these activities are destroyed with it. All the
mental functions and activities, which are said to be products
of mind as distinct from matter, are functions or activities of a
living material organism. The mind is a product of material
organisation.
Consciousness and the Nervous System
Not every body is capable of thinking and feeling, but only
organic, living bodies. And not every living body mani fests
those activities which are associated with the development of
mind. The a ppearance of mind is in fact bound u p with t he
evolution of the central nervous system in animals.
When living bodies evolved the nervous system, and when
from the central nervous system there developed the brain,
then the elementary function s of mind, centring on sensation ,
came into being. And with the further development of the
brain-of the cerebral cortex and its higher centres, whic h
w e find in man-there came into being the higher functions
of mind, the functions of thought. The brain is the organ
of thought. Thin king is a function performed by the brain.
Few people n owadays would deny the se well-established
facts. Nevertheless beliefs are widely held which contradict
them. Such, for example, is the belief in personal sJrvival
a fter death. Those who hold thi s belief usual ly suppose that
in our future conscious existence after death man y things wil l
become much clearer to us than they are now. In other words,
they believe that our mind s cannot attain their full develop­
ment unti l a fter we are dead. They believe that so far from the
brain being the organ of thought, our thought will reach
perfection only when we have no brain left to think with.
Lenin maintained that in order to arrive at "an analysis
and explanati on" of mental proces ses, in order to understand
their nature and origin, it was necessary to " set about makin g a
direct study of the material substratum of mental phenomen a
-the nervou s processes". (What the Friends of the People Are,
12
etc., Part I.) The foundations of this study have been laid by
modern physiology, in which the work of the Russian physiolo­
gist I van Pavlov was especially significant.
Organism and Environment
Before Pavlov, the nervous system was generally regarded as
fulfilling the primary function of co-ordinating the action of
the different parts of the organism; Sir Charles Sherrington
called this "the integrative action of the central nervous
system". Pavlov insisted, however, on the need to investigate
"a second immense part of the physiology of the nervous
system". For he regarded it as "a system which primarily
establishes the relation, not between the individual parts of
the organism, with which we have been mainly concerned
hitherto, but between the organism and its surroundings."
The primary function of the central nervous system is not
simply to regulate the functioning of the different parts of
the organism in relation to one another, but to regulate
the functioning of the organism as a whole in relation to its
surroundings.
Through the functioning of its nervous system, the animal
in the course ofits activity builds up most complicated relations
with its environment, thanks to which it is able to live in its
environment, to obtain its requirements and to react to definite
conditions in a definite way. Thus the animal relates itself to
its surroundings in such a way that it is actively aware of its
surroundings, reacts appropriately to events, and in turn acts
back upon them. To do all this, the animal uses its sense organs
and its limbs, and the organ controlling the whole process is
the brain.
The simplest sort of reflex, whereby a stimulus affecting
the sense organs evokes a muscular r(?sponse, constitutes a
relation or connection between the animal and its environment.
Such and such a stimulus evokes such and such a response­
this describes an active relationship of the animal with its
surroundings. Pavlov showed that the active relationship of
the animal with its surroundings begins from certain fixed
and constant connections between the animal and the external
13
world, which he called unconditioned reflexes, and develops
through the building up of temporary and variable connections,
which he called conditioned reflexes.
In order to study the development of reflexes, Pavlov used
the very familiar fact that animals discharge saliva from the
salivary glands in their mouths as a preparation for eating
food. Thus a dog presented with food discharges a certain
amount of saliva. This is a simple, unconditioned reflex. Present
the dog with food, and saliva forms in its mouth. Pavlov then
found that if a bell was rung whenever a dog was presented
with food, then, after a time, the sound of the bell would itself
be sufficient to cause the dog to salivate, even though the food
had not yet been presented. This he called a conditioned reflex.
For as a result of definite conditions, that is to say, the repeated
association of the bel� with food, the dog had bec0me con·
ditioned to react to the bell-whereas it never had to be
conditioned to react to the food. In other words, the dog had
learned to associate the bell with food, and had come to expect
food on hearing the bell and so to get ready for the food even
before it was actually presented.
Whereas unconditioned reflexes are a part of the heredity
of the animal, developed in the course of the evolution of the
species, conditioned reflexes are brought into being in the
course of the life of the individual-and, having been brought
into being, can also be changed or destroyed. Thus if after a
time food is no longer presented when the bell rings, then
the dog will cease to react to the bell; or it can be taught to
react not to any bell but only to a bell of a particular pitch;
and so on.
The mechanism of reflexes is found in the brain, in the con·
nections which exist between the sensory and motor centres
of the brain. The sensory centres are distinct from the motor
centres, the function of the former being to receive messages
and of the latter to send messages out. They are connected
in such a way that when a message comes in from the sense
organs to the sensory centres, it travels across to the motor
centres, which then dispatch a message to the muscles, glands,
etc.-so that to a given stimulus an appropriate response is made.
14
An unconditioned reflex is based, then, on a fixed and con­
stant connection which exists between the sensory and motor
centres of the brain. And conditioned reflexes are based on
temporary, variable and conditioned connections which are
formed between the sensory and motor centres in the course
of the animal's life.
Such connections between sensory and motor centres within
the animal's brain constitute connections between the animal
and the external world. For the function of the connections
inside the animal's brain is to connect the animal with what
lies outside-that is, with i ts surroundings.
Thus the unconditioned food-saliva connection within the
dog's brain connects the dog with its surroundings in such a
way that when food is presented the dog gets ready to cat and
digest it. And the conditioned bell-saliva connection within
the dog's brain connects the dog with its surroundings in such a
way that when a bell sounds, which the dog has learned to
associate with food, then, once again, the dog gets ready to
eat.
An animal lives only by means of its connections with i ts
surroundings, that is, by i ts external connections which are
established through the internal connections within i ts own
brain. Pavlov showed that these connections of the animal
with its surroundings are formed through the development of
condi tioned connections from u nconditioned connections, that
is, by the development of conditioned reflexes from uncon­
ditioned reflexes.
To sum up. An unconditioned connection is a relatively
constant, inherited connection between an animal and its
environment. I f, for instance, something suddenly passes in
front of the eye, the eyelids blink: this is an unconditioned
connection, which serves to protect the eye. Quite irrespective
of the varying conditions which it encounters, the animal relates
itself to the surrounding world through such reflexes. It is
born with such reflexes, which were formed in the course of
the evolution of the species.
A conditioned connection, on the other hand, is a temporary
and very variable connection between the animal and its
15
environment, which is acquired by it in the course of its
individual life, and which can likewise disappear. A dog, for
instance, will go to a certain place for its dinner. This is a
connection which it has acquired in the course of its life : it
has become conditioned to S'eek its dinner in that place, in
other words, it has learned to seek its dinner there. And if
conditions change, then such conditioned connections can be
changed correspondingly. The dog can learn to look for its
dinner somewhere else.
Pavlov showed that the nervous system of the higher animals
has the function of acquiring and establishing temporary and
variable connections between the animal and its surroundings,
whereby the animal adjusts its reactions to the varying con­
ditions of its environment, and also, by means of its own action
on its environment, adjusts its environment to the requirements
of the animal.
This function is performed in the brain, and consequently
Pavlov called the brain " the organ of the mos t complicated
relations of the animal to the external world".
Activi�y and Consciousness. Sensations
Pavlov insisted that mental activity is the same as higher
nervous activity, and that the different aspects of mental life
must be explained by data obtained from the investigation of
higher nervous activity. "The dualism which regards the soul
and the body as quite separate things is still too firmly ingrained
in us," he wrote. "For the scientist, such differentiation is
impossible."
Mental activity is an activity of the brain. And if the brain
is the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal
to the external world, then we must regard mental activity
as a part of the activity whereby the animal relates itself to
the external world. Its basis is the formation of conditioned
reflexes.
Mental life begins when things begin to take on a meaning
for the animal, and this happens when the animal , as a
result of the formation of conditioned reflexes, begins to learn
to connect one thing with ano ther. Something has a meaning
16
for an animal when the animal has learned to connect its
presence with something else. For example, a dog learns
to connect a particular stimulation of its sense of smell with
the presence of some particular food, or of another dog, or
of its master, etc., An animal is constantly receiving an
enormous number of stimuli through its external and internal
sense organs, and it learns to connect the various stimuli with
various things. Thus the various stimuli become not simply
stimuli to which a fixed response is automatically called forth,
but they constitute for the animal a system of signals of the
external world and of its own relations to the external world,
to which a whole variety of responses are made.
Thus the animal becomes actively aware of things. To be
aware of things is essentially an active state, and not a passive
state. To be aware of things is not simply to be affected by
them, but to respond to them.
Awareness means first of all that the animal, by the use of
its sense organs, discriminates certain features of its environ·
ment from the total environment, and responds to them. For
example, it picks out its food by smell, touch and sight, and
eats it.
And awareness means, secondly, that the animal attaches a
meaning to various features of its environment, in the sense
that it connects them with other things. For example, certain
things become for the animal signals of the presence of food,
or of the approach of something dangerous, and so on, and
the animal responds accordingly.
Thus the active awareness of things which is engendered
by the formation of conditioned reflexes means that the animal
learns to connect the stimuli which it actually receives with
other things by which it is not at the time directly affected. And
so it is able to form expectations and to learn by experience.
In this way the formation of conditioned reflexes gives rise
to the difference between the subj ective and the objective. This
difference, which has been the subject of much speculation
and mystification by philosophers, has a natural explanation.
For the difference between the subjective and the obj ective
begins to arise as soon as animals begin to be aware of things.
17
It is simply the difference between the totality of actually
existing material conditions and the aspects of them of which
the animal is aware and the meaning it attaches to them.
Hence the subjective as opposed to the obj ective, the mental
as opposed to the physical, awareness as opposed to that which
it is awareness of-all these differences arise as a result of the
development of the higher nervous activity of animals through
the building up by conditioned reflexes of ever more com­
plicated relations of the animal with the external world.
The subjective is different from the objective, because ( a ) the
animal is aware on! y of some parts or aspects and not of the
whole of its surroundings, and (b) the meaning it attaches to
things may be wrong-that is to say, things may become con­
nected together subjectively in different ways from those in
which they are connected together objectively, in actual fact.
And the objective is prior to the subjective, because ( a) the
existence of things is a condition for awareness of them whereas
awareness of things is not a condition for their existence, and
(b) things existed long before any awareness of them arose or
could have arisen on the part of living organisms.
It is, then, in the activity of the nervous system-the activity
of building complicated and variable relations with the external
world-that consciousness arises. When, through the formation
of conditioned reflext-s, the stimulations which an animal
receives begin to function for it as signals and it learns to
recognise such signals and to regulate its behaviour in accor­
dance with them, then a new quality comes into existence in
the nervous process of the animal, namely, consciousness.
Consciousness is not a mysterious "something" which comes
into being parallel to, sic.le by side with, the ma terial life process
of the brain. It is rather the new quality which distinguishes
that life process. The brain process becomes a conscious process
as a resul t of the brain's functioning as "the organ of the most
complicated relations of the animal to the external world".
Consciousness is the peculiar quality of the relationship of the
animal to the external world elTect�d by the life process of
the brain. This relationship becomes one in which the animal
is aware of i ts surroundings through the stimulations of the
I8
various centres of its brain and the connections established
in the brain. In so far as an an\mal lives in such relationship
with its surroundings, it is conscious and its existence is
conscious existence.
The elementary form of consciousness amongst animals is
sensory consciousness, or sensation. This arises when, through
the formation of conditioned reflexes, various stimulations of
its sense organs acquire a meaning and become signals for the
animal. For an external observer, these stimulations are simply
modifications of the sense organs to which the animal responds
in definite ways. But the life of the animal has then become a
sensuously conscious life. Its brain process, or rather, a part
of its brain process, has become a conscious process in which
stimulations of the sense organs become sensations.
Development of the Higher Mental Activity of Man
The higher mental activity of man, speech and thought, is not
separated by any unbridgeable gap from the sensory conscious­
ness which man possesses in common with other animals. On
the contrary, it arises from the evolutionary development of
the structure and functions of the human brain, as the organ
of the connections of the animal to the external world.
"When the developing animal world reached the stage of
man," Pavlov wrote, "an extremely important addition was
made to the mechanism of the higher nervous activity." This
addition consisted of the development of speech-and thought
processes, ideas, are inseparable from speech. It is known that
speech has its material basis in certain ·centres of the human
brain, the evolution and workings of which constituted that
"addition to the mechanism of the higher nervous activity" of
which ravlov wrote and which is peculiar to man. If this part
of the brain is injured or destroyed, not only is the ability to
speak impaired or lost but so is the ability to think.
Speech develops as a means of communication between
individuals in society, vvithout which their social life and so the
survival of the species would be impossible. The use of speech,
the ability to speak and to understand what is said, is rooted in
man's sensory activity, which he has in common with other
19
animals. It has evidently developed as an addition to that
sensory activity engendered by the new unique conditions of
the human mode of social life and based on the enlargement of
the structure and functions of the human brain.
Many animals have evolved means of communicating with
other members of their spe-cies about situations of which they
are aware through their sensations. Thus birds have a warning
call to alert other birds to danger. In some cases quite com­
plicated communications occur. Thus a bee returning to the
hive performs a dance in response to which other bees fly off in
an indicated direction where the first bee has found nectar. By
speech the human being can likewise communicate to others
particular facts of which he is aware through his sensations.
But speech enables us to do far more than this. For it consists
not just of cries or gestures, but the combination of words.
Through its sensations an animal recognises objects and
their sensible characters, and so responds to the different
situations which confront it. In building up conditioned con­
nections with things through sensations, the animal is already
learning to react to and so distinguish what is common to
different things, that is to say, to recognise the same kind of
thing and the same properties of things on different occasions.
In human speech there are words, in the first place, for the
different kinds of objects and the different properties of
objects which we recognise through Ollr sensations. And so,
by combining these words, we can speak at will about different
kinds of obj ects, attribute different properties to them, and so
communicate not merely information about particular sensible
facts of which we are immediately aware and which call for
an immediate response, but about the kinds of things which
surround us and the properties they have, about how they can
be changed, about not only what is immediately and sensibly
present but about the past, and future, and the far distant in
space, and about not only what is actual but what is possible
or imaginable.
Speech performs an abstracting and generalising function in
relation to what we are aware of through sensation, and so
makes possible the communication of plans and ideas, and the
20
whole higher activity of thought. To have ideas is to have
words and the use of speech. And this affords us much wider
connections with the world about us and far different relations
with each other than those possible to animals without speech.
Human beings communicating by speech are placing them­
selves in a new and more complex relationship with the
surrounding world and with each other compared with other
animals, which are limited to the connections they build up
through sensation alone. The human brain is the organ of this
relationshi p ; and the abstracting, generalising, planning and
thinking activity of the human brain is the activity of develop­
ing this relationship.
Evidently, without the sensation which people have in com­
mon with other animals there can be no speech and no thought,
since these develop from man's sensory activity. At the same
time, the development of human sensation is also modified by
speech. Our sensory awareness is conditioned and directed by
our ideas. Thus we do not merely have sensations of sight,
sound, touch, etc., to which we respond, but these sensations
are integrated into perceptions of objects of which we have
ideas and know the names. This is shown, for example, by the
fact that in children the naming of things is an indispensable
part of the education of their senses_; or again, by the fact that
people who through some brain injury have forgotten the
names of things become confused in their reactions to those
things.
We may conclude, then, that not only our sensations but our
thoughts and ideas as well, all the higher intellectual and
spiritual activities of man, take their origin from the material
processes of the human organism, depend on a bodily organ of
which they are the functions, and grow out of the interactions
of the human organism with its environment, natural and
social, mediated by the higher nervous activity of the brain.
21
Chapter Two
MI N D AS A P R O DUCT A N D R E F L ECTION
OF M ATT E R
Mental Processes are Processes of the Brain, Relating the Organism
to its Surroundings
E shall in this chapter try briefly to summarise the main
conclusions about the relations of matter and mind
which have been reached by Marxism and are confirmed by
every scientific investigation, contrasting them with the views
held by idealism.
Mental functions are functions of highly developed matter,
namely, of the brain. Mental processes are brain processes,
processes of a material, bodily organ.
The essential feature of mental processt.".5 is that in and
through them the animal continually builds up most com­
plicated and variable relations with its surroundings. When
we perceive things we are relating ourselves to external objects
through the perceptual activity of the brain. And when we
think of things, we are relating ourselves to external objects
through the thought activity of the brain.
Believing that consciousness belongs to a mind which
exists in separation from matter, idealism generally relies upon
the method of introspection in order to give an account of our
consciousness. This is the method of looking inside one's own
consciousness, so to speak, and trying to analyse what is
found there.
The outstanding example of the use of the introspective
method in modern psychology is psycho-analysis. Psycho­
analysis has evolved a special technique of controlled intro­
spection, applied by the co-operation of a patient and a
W
22
psycho-analyst. By inducing the patient to report on whatever
comes into his mind, to relate his dreams, and so on, the
psycho-analyst claims to discover beneath consciousness a
whole realm of the unconscious. And so there has been
developed a very elaborate theory of the different parts of
the mind and of their relations and functions--of the conscious
and the unconscious, the ego, the id and the super-ego. This
is but an extension of the method used by all idealist philoso­
phers and psychologists when they try to analyse the constituent
parts of the human mind, classifying them, relating them and
trying to trace their development, all the time treating
consciousness as though it were a world on its own, divorced
from the external material world.
Adopting such a method, many idealist philosophers have
come to the conclusion that the perceptions and ideas which
constitute the content of consciousness are a special kind of
objects which have a mental existence distinct from the
material existence of objects outside our consciousness.
For such idealist philosophers, what we are aware of in our
conscious life is not material objects at all. We know only our
ideas of things, and not the "things in themselves". Thus the
English philosopher John Locke wrote in his Essay on tJu
Human Understanding: "The mind, in all its thoughts and
reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas,
which it alone does or can contemplate."
Hence idealists conclude that only God knows what are the
properties of "things in themselves", for they consider our
sensations and ideas to be a kind of wall inside our conscious·
ness, cutting it off from the external world. S ome go a step
further, and conclude that there is no reason to believe that
external, material t hi n gs exist at all: nothing exi.>ts except our
minds and the sensations and ideas in our minds. "If there
were external bodies," wrote George Berkeley in his Principles
of Human Knowledge, "it is impossible we should ever come to
know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same
reasons to think there were as we have now."
But there is another method of studying our consciousness,
namely, the method of science, which studies living, conscious
23
organisms in their active relationship with their surroundings.
This method does not treat consciousness as a special object of
introspective contemplation. And so it does not study con­
sciousness as though it were something existing in abstraction
from the life process of living conscious organisms, but, on the
contrary, it studies their conscious activity.As Marx and Engels
briefly expressed it in The German Ideology: "Consciousness is
always conscious existence."
As we have said, the essence of conscious activity is to build
up complicated and variable active relations between the
conscious organism and its surroundings, and this function is
performed by the brain. Consequently the processes of con­
sciousness are processes whereby we relate ourselves to the
external world. Far from standing in the way of our apprehen­
sion of external things, our sensations and ideas are the means
whereby we apprehend them.
"Sensation is the direct connection between consciousness
and the external world", wrote Lenin. "The sophism of idealist
philosophy consists in the fact that it regards sensation as being
not the connection between consciousness and the external
world, but as a fence, a wall, separating consciousness from
the external world." (Afaterialism
and Empirio-Criticism,
chapter 1.)
Adopting the scientific approach to the study of conscious­
ness, Marxism therefore denies the idealist theory that when
we perceive, feel or think there are two separate processes going
on-the material process of the brain and the mental process
of consciousness. Only one process is involved, namely, the
material process of the brain. Mental processes arc simply one
aspect of the processes of the functioning of the brain as the
organ of most complicated relations to the external world.
And so Marx wrote that thinking is "the life process of the
human brain." (Capital, Preface to 2nd edition.)
Consciousness is a Product of the Development of Matter
(2) According to idealism, such phenomena as perceptions,
feelings and thoughts could not be produced by the workings
24
of any material system. Idealism holds that the peculiar quality
of consciousness, which distinguishes mental processes, cannot
be explained as arising from any possible combination of
material conditions, but is a quality absolutely incompatible
with all qualities of material systems. Such a quality, idealism
concludes, can belong only to something non-material,
namely, the mind.
But all the known facts point to the conclusion that con·
sciousness is a product of the development of matter, namely,
of living bodies with a central nervous system, and that per·
ceptions, feelings and thoughts are, in fact, the highest products
of matter.
"If the question is raised: what, then, are thought and
consciousness and whence they came," wrote Engels in Anti­
Diihring, Part I, chapter 3, "it becomes apparent that they are
products of the human brain, and that man himself is a
product of nature, which has been developed in and along
with his environment."
"The material, sensuously perceptible world to which we
belong is the only reality", Engels further wrote in Ludwig
FetUrbach, chapter 2. "Our consciousness and thinking, however
suprasensuous they may seem, are the products of a material,
bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind, but
mind itself is merely the highest product of nature."
When animals develop a nervous system and begin actively
to relate themselves to their environment by conditioned
connections, then the nervous process becomes a conscious
process, a process of sensation and, in man, of thinking. Hence
·sensations and thoughts are the peculiar products of the
nervous process.
Sensation, wrote Lenin in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
chapter I, is "one of the properties of matter in motion".
"Matter acting on our sense-organs produces sensation", he
continued. "Sensation depends on the brain, nerves, retina,
etc., i.e., on matter organised in a definite way... . Sensation,
thought, consciousness are the supreme product of matter
organised in a particular way."
25
Consciousness is Reflection of the Material World
(3) Many idealists, who believe that the mind exists in
separation from the body and that perceptions and thoughts
cannot be products of any material process, say that percep­
tions and thoughts are creations of the mind which occupy our
consciousness independently of the existence of external,
material things.
But Marxism maintains that perceptions and thoughts are
nothing but reflections of material things. The processes of
consciousness are processes reflecting external, material reality,
and nothing can come to birth in consciousness except as a
reflection of the material world.
Marx wrote, in the Preface to the 2nd edition of Capital, that
"the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by
the human mind and translated into forms of thought."
He considered that in the process of thinking, and in
consciousness in general, there is produced a reflection of
different parts or aspects of the material world in one particular
material process, namely, the life process of the brain. In our
consciousness, different parts or aspects of the material world
are translated into forms of consciousness-perceptions and
thoughts. They are reproduced in the life activity of the brain,
in forms appropriate to that activity.
Thus, for example, the properties of various bodies absorb­
ing and reflecting light are, in the sensory activity of the brain,
reproduced in the form of sensations of colour. Again, the
relations and common features of things are, in the thinking
activity of the brain, reproduced in the form of concepts.
What exactly do we mean by "reflection", when we say
that consciousness is a reflection of material reality ? There
are four features of the process of reflection to which we may
specially draw attention
Material Reality is Primary and its Mental Reflection is Secondary o r
Derivative
(a) The process of reflection involves a relationship between
two separate material processes, such that features of the first
process are reproduced in corresponding foatures of the second
26
process. The first process is primary, and its reflection in the
second is secondary or derivative. For the first process d evelops
in complete independence of the sec ond, whereas the reproduc­
tion of features of the first process by reflection in the second
could not occu r unless those features were first there to be
reproduced or reflected.
This fundamental featu re of a ny process of reflection is
illustrated by reflection in a mirror-although, as we s hall see,
the act ive reflection of external reality in conscious ness differs
in important res pects from the passive reflection which takes
place in a mirror.
Thus when objects a re reflected in a mirror, those objects
whi ch are set before the mirror do not depend on being
reflected in the mirror for either their existence or their
characteris tics; but, on the other hand, the reflection in th e
mirror depends on what is set before the mirror, a nd nothing
is reflected in the mirror which does not reproduce in some
way the characterist ics of what is set before the mirror. Hence
the ob ject is primary, and its reflection secondary or derivative.
Similarly, the existence of material obj ects does not depend
on our bei ng consc ious of them; but , on the other hand, there
is n othing in our cons ciousness which does not reproduce in
s ome way or other something which exists in the material world.
There are many characteristics of thi ngs which are not
reproduced in our sensations ; but we have no sensation whic h
d oes not corres pond, in some way or other, to some definite
characteristic of things. There are many relations of things
and common features of thi ngs which are not reproduced in
our concepts ; but we can form no concept in our minds whi ch
d oes not reproduce, in some way or other, even if in fantastic
ways (as in a distorting mirror) , s ome features or some
relationship of things .
Of course, many conce pts give an appearance of having no
basis in the reflection of material reality, just because, once
fo rmed , concepts can be freely combined in all sorts of fantastic
ways. For example, everyone knows that no real ani mal is
refl ected in the conce pt of a mermaid, but that this concept
is formed by c ombining ideas of real animals , namely, of
27
women and fishes. Similarly, materialists can consistently argue
that no real object corresponds to the concept of God as a
trinity of persons with infinite power and infinite knowledge,
but that the several concepts of persons, power, knowledge and
infinity have all been formed as reflections of material reality.
When we say, therefore, that material reality is reflected
in consciousness, we mean that features of material reality
are reproduced in consciousness, and that material reality is
primary and its reproduction in consciousness secondary or
derivative.
"Our consciousness is only an image of the external world,"
wrote Lenin, in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 1 ,
"and i t is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing
imaged, and that the latter exists independently of that which
images it."
Material Reality is Reflected in Consciousness in Forms Determined
by the Activity of the Brain
(b) What exists in one form in the primary process is repro­
duced in another form in the secondary process of reflection.
What exists independently in one form is, so to speak, trans­
lated into another form in the process ofreflection . The process
of reflection is therefore a process of translation or transforma­
tion from one form into another. And the form of the reflection
depends, of course, on the nature of the process of reflection.
\Vhen we say, therefore, that material reality is reflected in
consciousness, we mean that features of material processes are
reproduced-in another material process, namely, in the life
process of the brain-in special forms, namely, in the forms
of perceptions and thoughts.
These forms are created in the operation of the processes
of the brain. Material reality is thus reproduced or reflected in
consciousness in forms created by and adapted to the practical
requirements of living, conscious organisms.
Our sensations, for example, are the reflections in the
conscious process of our brains of features of material things.
Those features are not, however, themselves sensations but
are reflected in sensations, and our sensations are the form in
28
which we are perceptually conscious of them and so are able
to react to them.
Thus when we see col ou rs, for instance, we are not seeing
things which exist onl y in our minds-as some phil os ophers
have asserted-but are seeing things which exist independ ently,
outside our m inds, the properties of which are reflected in our
sensations of colour. Propertie s which exist in real things as
properties of the absorption and reflection of light are reflected
in our perceptual consciousness in the form of sensations of
colour.
Thus Lenin, in the chapter already quoted, wrote : " If
colour is a sensation only depending on the retina (as natural
sc ience compels you to admit) , then light rays, fall ing upon the
retina, produce the sensation of col our. This means that out­
sid e us, independently of us and of our minds, there exists a
movement of matter . . . which, acting u pon the retina, pro­
d uces in man the sensation of a particular c olour. This is
precisely how natural science regards it. It explains the sensa­
tions of various colours by the various lengths of l ight-waves
existing outside the human retina, o utside man and indepen·
d ently of him . "
Thou ght, again, prod uces a more abstract, more general
refl ection of reality than perception. In what form is reality
reflected in our thoughts ? It is reflected in the form of proposi­
tions. Thought issues in propos itions in which, for example, a
subj ect is combined with a predicate. The material worl d d oes
n ot exist in the form of a combination of subj ects and predicates.
This combination is a product of s peech, of the thinking
activity of the brain, and through it reality is reflected in
thought. This is how the material world is " translated into
forms of thou ght."
Consider, for example, any obj ect-a red pencil, say. When
we think about such an obj ect we express our conclusions
about it in propositions, such as, " This pencil is red" . This
proposition is divided into a subj ect and predicate, which are
combined in the proposition. Bu t the obj ect is not so divided
in concrete reality. A red pencil d oes not divide into two parts
-a subje ct, the pencil , and a predicate, r ed. Nevertheless, it is
29
obvious that when we say, "This pencil is red", the proposition
does reflect the objective reality of the pencil, which is thus
correctly "translated into forms of thought".
The Reflection of Material Reality in Consciousness Takes Place
through the Active Relationship of the Living Organism and its
Surroundings
(c) Reflection is always a product of the relationship and inter­
action of the process in which the reflection occurs and the
primary process which is reflected. Its source is the primary
process.
Thus the life process of the brain reproduces or reflects
in its products-perceptions and thoughts-the surrounding
material reality, which is the source of all perceptions and
thoughts. And this reflection takes place in, and is the result
of, the interaction of the conscious organism with its environ­
ment. This interaction is regulated by the brain, as the organ
of the most complicated relations of the animal to its environ­
ment. The brain is continually active in the process of reflec­
tion, continually producing the reflection of external objects
in consciousness.
It follows, therefore, that the way in which the material
world is reflected in consciousness is governed by the active
relationship between the living conscious organism and its
surroundings, by the circumstances of the animal, by its internal
state as well as by i ts external relations.
When we take this into account, it becomes obvious that
in the process of reflection of external reality in our conscious­
ness, the obj ects reflected can become considerably altered in
the reflection. For the reflection is not at all like a direct
mirror-image of the object, but is the product of a complex
process of interaction in which the brain is continually active.
This accounts for the well known fact that our perceptions
of obj ects are very often misleading ; they may misrepresent
obj ects, or even (as in certain illusions and hallucinations) lead
us to suppose that objects are present. which are not really
there at all.
Many philosophers have opposed the materialist view that
30
consciousness reflects external reality. And one of the argu·
ments they h av e advanced for opposing this vi ew is based
simply on the character of our perceptions.
" Take a penny," they say. "You believe that th e material
penny has a definite shape and siz e, and that this material
obj ect is reflected in your perceptions when you l ook at it.
Very well. If you l ook at this penny from a distance it l ooks
smal l, whil e if you hold it clos e t o your eye it l ooks big; if
you hold it one way it looks circular, whil e if you h old it
another way it l ooks ell iptical. In fact, your perceptions of it
change in all sorts of ways , while the material object, of which
your perceptions are alleged to be the images in your mind,
does not change at all . How, then, can percepti ons be said to
reflect external reality, since they change while the latter does
not ? "
This question, which is so confi dentl y posed a s a n unanswer­
able argument against th e theory of reflection, can be very
easily answered. The philosoohers who argue in such a way
have s imply forgotten that reflection is an active process,
conditioned by the actual relations between th e organism and
its surroundings.
Thus if we look at the same thing from different distances
or from different angl es, then of cours e it will be differently
refl ected in our perceptions-its siz e or shape will differ. Again,
if we see a thing through different mediums, of cours e it will
l ook different-as when a straight stick hel d in the water looks
bent. Again, the reflection will necessari ly be altered by the
actual state of our sense organs-press the corner of your eye,
and you will s ee two of everything ; make one h and hot and
the other cold, and plunge them both into a bowl of water, and
th e water will f ed col der to one hand than to the other. Lastly,
since perceiving is an activity of the brain, it is not surprising
that, objects havin g been once reflected in that activity, the
brain can reproduce r eflec tions of those obj ects under certain
circumstances even whe n they are not there-as in dreams,
ill usions of all kinds and haliucinations.
Still more in the processes of thought can we misrepresent
to ourselves the properties of things, ascribe to them properties
31
which they do not possess, and think of things which do not
exist at all. By means of thought we often correct illusions
occurring in perception. But we also often produce new and
greater illusions.
The Reflection qf Reality in Consciousness is an Active Factor in
Directing the Practice of Changing Reality
(d) The fact that reflection in consciousness is the product
of life activity, of the activity of the organism in relation to its
surroundings, means that the consciousness of man, both his
perceptions and his thoughts, is continually conditioned by his
experience and his social activity. What men perceive and
what they think does not arise by a direct process of the repro­
duction of external reality in perception and thought, but is
conditioned by their experience, manner of life and social
relations.
Thus it is well known that differences in people's experience
and manner of life determine differences in what they perceive
in things. The perceptions of a skilled engineer examining a
complex machine, for example, are not the same as those of a
man not familiar with such machines, although their sense
organs may be affected in precisely similar ways. The percep­
tions of a farmer looking at a country scene are not the same
as those of a townsman, and an artist perceives the same scene
in still other ways.
Still greater are the differences which arise between men's
concepts and thoughts about things on the basis of differences
in class, experience and upbringing.
In the human being, mureover, ideas about things also exert
an influence back on perceptions. The fact that we do not
merely perceive things but form i<leas of them influences
perception. This was exemplified, indeed, in the examples just
cited. If a skilled engineer perceives more in a machine than
other men do, this is because he has more ideas about it than
they. Again, while artists may perceive more in things than
inartistic people, different artists also perceive things differently
according to their ideas of them. This is shown, for example, in
the very different ways in which painters of different outlook
32
portray human beings.
The reflection of our surroundings and of our connections
with our surroundings in our consciousness is a very active
factor in determining our activity of changing our surround­
ings. The fact that consciousness is reflection does not mean
that consciousness is not an active factor in life. Consciousness
is in the first place a product of life activity, in the second place
it is a product which plays a major part in directing tha t very
activity of which it is a product. In consciousness, life has
produced the means of directing life towards definite ends.
Indeed, we can say that that is why consciousness was
bound to be produced in the course of the evolution of living
organisms.
Conscious existence is life activity governed b)' the reflection
of external conditions in the brain. This reflection is, in the
first place, a product of the active relationships of the conscious
organism to its surroundings ; and, in turn, it actively con­
ditions the further development of those relationships through
the practice of men in changing their surroundings. Man's
consciousness is a product of his practice which plays the part
of directing his practice.
Finally, in considering this active role of consciousness we
should bear in mind that the reflection of the material world
in consciousness docs not take the form only of perceptions
and thoughts. In his active, conscious existence man also feels
emotions.
According to many idealists, emotions well up out of man's
inner spiritual being. But for materialism, emotions, too, are
modes of the reflection of material reality in the consciousness
of man. They reflect the active relationship of man to his
environment. And being active, being affected by things in his
activity, and taking a definite attitude towards things and
possible changes in things, man feels emotions about things and
is impelled in his activity by emotions. In hi5 conscious exis­
tence man is not only aware of things in perception and
thought, but also feels his active relationship to things
emotionally.
Emotional consciousness is, then, a necessary part of life. A
33
man relates himself to surrounding reality by perceiving it and
forming ideas about it, but this relationship needs to be com­
pleted by the emotions he feels about it. Similarly, emotions
need to be guided and directed by perceptions and ideas.
Matter and its Reflection
To conclude.
There is no consciousness apart from a living brain. The
source of all consciousness, of everything that enters into
consciousness, is the material world. In consciousness there
occurs the reflection of the material world in the life process
of the brain, and this reflection is what constitutes the content
of consciousness.
There are not, therefore, two separate and distinct spheres
of existence, material and spiritual. There are not two worlds,
the material and the spiritual worlds. But there exists only the
material world, only material processes.
"The an ti thesis of matter and mind has absolute significance
only within the bounds of a very limited field," Lenin wrote in
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 3, "exclusively within
the bounds of the fundamental problem of what is to be
regarded as primary and what as secondary. Beyond these
bounds the relative character of this antithesis is indubitable."
In the course of material development there arises the
reflection of material processes in one particular material
process, the life process of the brain. And when we distinguish
material and spiritual, matter and mind, what we are dis­
tinguishing is simply material being, movemeni in space and
time, from its reflection in the life process of the brain.
The process which gives rise to the reflection and the process
in which the reflection occurs are both material processes. But
the reflection is not material but mental-that is to say, not
material but a reflection of matter.
34
Chapter Three
S O C I AL
LABO U R
AND
HE
S O C I AL
THINKING
The Human Brain and What We D o with It
T
human brain, which alone i s capable of produc ing
general ideas, c onceptual co nsciousn ess, thinking, is the
product of a lon g evolution of the forms of life. It is the cul­
mination of a process o f evoluti on in the size and structure of
the brain. In particular, t he c erebral c ortex is far larger in
man than in other animals, and a large part of the cortex has
come to be specially concerned with controlling the hands and
the organs of speech.
It is true that we are only at the beginning of scientific
knowl edge of how the brain works. But enough is known to
assert c onfidently that the brain is the organ of thought, that
think ing is done by the brain, and that the evolution of a
certain size and structure of the brain was n ecessary as a
condition of our being abl e to think with it .
The biological evolution of the brain into an organ capable
of thinking took place in the pre-human stage of t he evolution
of man, in that stage during which ape-like animals were
evolving into men. The decisive step in man's evolution was
probably taken when an erect posture was adopted by these
animals. For this set free the hand, with which the whole of
man' s producti ve activity has been acc omplished. With t he
use of the hand went the physical development of the hand
into the human hand, a nd with that, the development of the
brain whic h c ontrol s the hand into the human brain.
The first men al ready had the same kinds of brains as we
have, just as they had the same kinds of hands, feet , eyes, noses,
teeth, stomachs and so on. Our organs, including our brains,
35
are no different from theirs, although in the meantime we
have learned to do many things which they did not do.
Thus once biological evolution had produced the human
brain and hands, man started a new kind of evolution of his
own. The evolution of man is not biological. Wha t man evolves
is his social organisation, his techniques, his cul ture and his
knowledge, his conscious mastery over himself and external
n ature
Hence in relation to the brain, what has developed since
man first came into existence is not his brain but the use he
has made of it-his development of the capacities contained
in it. Man has developed his material activities, his perceptions
and his thoughts ; and through doing this has continually
revol utionised his own conditions of life and increased his
capacities and powers.
.
From Perceptions to Ideas
Thinking arises only out of sense-perception a nd must be
preceded by it. To thi n k about the world we must first perceive
the world. \Ve can form no concept that is not based on and
prompted by perception. And in genf'ral, no ideas at all are
formed without the perceptio n s which a re the necessary
material on which the activity of thi n king has to work.
A man isolated from childhood in a confined space, for
instance, might ha ve as good a brain as anyone else, but he
would have very li ttle to think about, and his ideas and the
range of his ideas would be very limited. Similarly, the range
of ideas of primitive peoples is limited as compared with
civilised men, though their brains are in no way inferior.
It is as our perceptions increase with increased activity and
social contacts that our ideas develop.
Thinking, then, grows out of pe rc ep t ion And this develop­
ment takes place only in and through the active relationship
to the external world which men establish for themselves in
the course of th eir practical so cial ac tivity Perception itself
is not just a passive receiving of impressions from external
objects. The development of sensation into perception is the
product of the development of active r elationships to the
.
.
36
external worl d . And the more varied and complex is the active
rel ationship of the organism to its surroundings, the more
varied and complex will be the content of the perception of
those surrou ndings.
"The real in tellectual wealth of the individual depends
enti rely on the weal th of his real connections," wrote :Marx
and En ge ls ( Tiu German Ideology, Part r , section 2 . ) .
Human p e rce p ti on i s much wider in scope than that o f any
other animal. And th is is because man has wider ac tivities and
i nterests, and in developing these activities and interes ts ha<J
effected a corresponding development of his senses. It is because
man has developed h i s activi ties and his perce p tions that he
has been able to think and to develop his id e a s- a n d this has
then reacted back again on the further development of his
activities and of hi s perceptions.
"The eagle sees much further than man, but the human
e y e sees considerabl y more i n things than does the eye of the
eagle," wrote Engels. "The dog has a far keener sense of smell
than man, b u t i t does not distinguish a hundredth part of the
odours that for man are definite features of different th i n gs .
And the sense of touch, which the ape h 3. rdl y possesses in its
crudest initial form, has been developed side by side with the
development of the human hand i tself, through the medium
of labour." ( Tlr.e Party Played by Labour in the Transition from
Ape to Man).
The basis for this heightened perception and wider range
of perception in man was established by our early ancestors,
when they first began to stand erect, to look around them, and
to use their hands, not to swing among the branches of trees
and grab food, but to fashion tools and implements.
As man's activity developed, so there developed the wealth
of his connections with the world around him. Man achieved a
heightened perception and wider scope of percep tions, and
then speech, which marks the transition from concrete sense­
perceptions to abstract, general ideas. The interaction in the
course of man's ac tivi ty of his ideas with his sensations led to
the still greater developmen t of his perceptions, and so again
to the further development of ideas.
37
Lai(J:u
�.fan Ii··� i:i Y� e ., , a-'.!
:� ;-_:.s fe:Iow men.
H.il wf.0le ::-.u.:!e of fe il ;r� :.-=:.!°': . e � .-!: 2.3 it is in his
a.c.dal act.:-w;:y t:..a t r.e e:-.:a:�� :-.:.i �- ..;:.:i· - · s.o it is in his
social ac.ti;� ty t�.a:., i:Z:�:.5 f:c-=. · - � rr-- ·e:i·= ::s, he begins
to form id e.<U, . ..... :-. a:-..: ·o c:�.- : ? � .�!'.ll.
The ham of •a-.'s s.::.a.a;. � .� 7 is �.....r . It is in and
through labr,.;r t.� t ::-.a:i !:n: Gf �- � 5 es :!is perceptions
and fint of a!1 k?i:-..s w
.. !--.:S C..... :: :o 0..:r.i -to form ideas
and to COr:1�ur.:ca� t1-- e�, w '"' �. c.r;; ::- -;::O: a:: d lar.guage.
I n labo..:r, t:.e:1, il
'Oe f -=.:! t.::.::
;:c.e :a;id origin of
thought a:1d l.a::guag�
" Labo�r . . . is tl:e p�-a:-y b2..s,; c cc::�.:o::i of all h uman
existen�," v.-r o : e E::5e...; i.::: l:.:s esay c.., P.e Pat Played by
Lcbaur in tr.e Trc.-..si:=--: f-:. AJ.e
.1.f
"a::d t..� to such an
ex t en t that, in a �.se, we 1::. a·;e t::> uy �· h:xn.:.r created man
himself."
In the evo. ution of :::1:u: , E:: -els
· :::e-.'.! CY.:t, L�e fil"'St decisive
step was t.aken when an e:-e-ct ?05 .:: e .,..� aco?ted. This set
free the han d . And w?:c.1 :n c.;. be-�;. :o f7 •� ·o:J tools and imple­
ments with their ha:ids for �e �::i cl-.a:: �5 e..�:e.-nal obj ects and
p roducing the rr. e�ns of life, t.� t "'-::.s �e real beginning of
m en and of human 5-0cie �y.
"The first premise of a:J !-:u..�'1 r.15: ry is, of course, the
existence of living hurri'l i n civic:::t..s., " "'-rote �farx and
Engels. "Thus th e first fact to be es��::..S.'1ed is th e physical
organisation of these inc:\;Ct:�i.S a.�:! Ll-ie.!.::- CO:!Sequ en t relation
to the rest of n a t u r e. " But ha\-i.;. � es� lis.hed th a t fact, it is
necessary to establish ,,·hat thev do--:h cir activity, their mode
of life. "1 fen . . . begin to cfati..�guisb thee.selves from animals
as soon as they begin to produce their � e.'L"15 of subsistence, a
s tep which is conditi oned b their p!-ir· · c:tl o rg:misa tion. By
producing their means of subsis:e.:ice men are indirectly
producing their actual materi al li fe". Tr.t Gmnc.t1 Ideology,
Part I, chapter t .)
•
•
•
•
·
It is in producing their means of subsistence and so indirectly
producing their actual material life that men, conditioned by
their physical organisation, begin to act as men, to develop
social organisation and "make their own history", and in so
doing to form ideas, to think and to speak.
Distinctive Features of Human Labour
What are the distinctive features of human labour, as com­
pared with the ways in which other animals secure the means
of life ?
( 1 ) First, men fashion tools and implements, changing
natural objects so as to use their properties to bring about
desired ends.
"An instrument of labour," wrote Marx (Capital, Volume I,
chapter 7, section 1 ) , "is a thing, or a complex of things,
which the labourer interposes between himself and the subject
of his labour, and which serves as the conductor of his activity.
He makes use of the mechanical, physical and chemical
properties of some substances in order to make other substances
subservient to his aims."
The animal, on the other hand, collects and rearranges
objects to hand, but docs not transform them and use their
properties and the natural forces contained in them for pro­
ducing his means oflife and affecting large-scale transformation
of his surroundings in accordance with his own needs.
"The tool implies specific human activity, the transforming
reaction of man on nature, production/' wrote Engels.
"Animals in the narrower sense also have tools, but only as
limbs of their bodies: the ant, the bee, the beaver. Animals
also produce, but their productive effort on surrounding
nature in relation to the latter amounts to nothing at all.
Man alone has succeeded in impressing his stamp on nature,
not only by shifting the plant and animal world from one
place to another, but also by so altering the aspect and climate
of his dwelling place, and even the plants and animals them­
selves, that the consequences of his activity can disappear only
with the general extinction of the terrestrial globe." (Dialectics
of Nature, Introduction.)
39
"Animals change external nature by their activities just as
man does, if not to the same extent", Engels further wrote.
" . . . Bu t if animals exert a lasting effect on their environment,
it happens unintentionally, and, as far as the ani mals are
concerned, it is an accident. The further men become removed
from the animals, however, the more their e ffect on nature
assumes the character of a premeditated , planned action,
directed towards definite ends known in advance . . . .
" I n short the animal merely uses external nature, and
brings about changes in it simply by i ts presence ; man by his
changes makes it serve his ends, masters it." ( The Part Played by
Labour in the Transitionfrom Ape to Man.)
By his labour, then, man masters nature, fashioning tools
and using them so as to make nature serve his ends. "In the
labour process," wrote Marx, "man's activity, with the help
of the instruments of labour, effects an alteration, designed
from the commencement, in the material worked upon . "
(Capital, Volume I , chapter 7 , section 1 . ) And it is in thus
mastering and changing nature that man changes himseif,
develops his own human attributes.
(2) The second distinctive feature of human labour follows
from the first, and lies in its conscious and co-operative
character.
In making tools and using them, in compelling natural
objects and natural forces to serve his ends, man is conscious
of his ends, has an idea of the result he intends to bring about.
And men work co-operatively, according to a conscious design
and plan, to bring about the ends they intend to achieve.
While such social creatures as bees, for exampl e, build
elaborate structures, they do so in an automatic way, by
instinct. Human builders, on the other hand, work according
to a conscious plan.
"We presuppose labour in a form which stamps it as
exclusively human," wrote Marx. " A spider conducts opera­
tions that rcsem ble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame
many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what
distinguishes the worst of architects from the best of bees i s
this, that t h e architect raises h i s structure in imagination before
40
he erects it in reality. At the end of every Jabour process we
get a result that already existed in the imagination of the
labourer at its commencement." (Capital, Volume I, chapter 7 ,
section 1 .)
Labour, Speech and Thought
These distinctive features of labour-that labour is the use
of tools and implements to effect changes of external objects
by human beings co-operating to realise results which they
consciously set before themselves-explain why labour neces­
sarily gives rise to speech and thought, and cannot develop
without the aids of speech and thought.
"The mastery over nature, which begins with the develop­
ment ·of the hand, with labour, widened man's horizon at every
new advance. He was continually discovering new, hitherto
unknown properties of natural objects . " ( The Part Played by
Labour, etc.)
In these words, Engels points out that labour, even of the
most primitive kind, as in the fashioning and use of hunting
and fishing implements, makes men perceive things with a
new interest, enlarges their perceptions, "widens their horizon" ,
makes them aware through their practical activity a n d from
their perceptions of ever more properties of natural objects.
And indeed, from these first beginnings, it has always been
through their advancing mastery over n ature that succeeding
generations of men have come to know more and more of the
properties of natural objects : each stage of advance has
meant enlarged perceptions, new discoveries, wider horizons.
"On the other hand," Engels continues, " the development
of labour necessarily helped to bring the members of society
closer together by multiplying cases of mutual support and
joint activity, and by making clear the advantage of this joint
activity to each individual. In short, men i n the making arrived
at the point where they had something to say to one another."
This something which they "had to say to one another"
concerned, in the first place, the properties of those objr.cts
which can be used by man, and the ends to be achieved and
the resul ts to be aimed at by human co-operation. And this
41
is precisely something which can only be "said", which can
only be expressed by articulate speech, and not by calls and
gestures such as are employed by the animals.
"The little that even the most highly developed animals
need to communicate to one another can be communicated
even without the aid of articulate speech," Engels pointed out.
Animals signal to one another the presence of particular
objects-as in the gestures made by bees, the so-called dances
by which they indicate the presence of a source of honey in a
particular direction ; they arouse one another to particular
actions-as in the call of the leader of a pack. But that is all.
If their mode of life were such that they needed to communi­
cate with one another about the different properties of things,
about how these were to be used, and about the ends they
aimed to achieve by different forms of co-operative activity,
then such gestures and calls would no longer avail them. For
they would then need to communicate not the particular but
the general. Animals have no such need. But men do have such
a need immediately they embark upon even the most elemen­
tary forms of social labour. They then have something they
need to say to one another, as Engels pointed out. And so they
develop the means to say it.
"The need led to the creation of its organ," Engels con­
tinues. "The undeveloped larynx of the ape was slowly but
surely transformed by means of gradually increased modula­
tion, · and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to
pronounce one articulate letter after another. Comparison
with animals proves that this explanation of the origin of
language from and in the process of labour is the only correct
one."
Men needed to communicate with one another about the
properties of objects and the practical use to be made of those
properties. And Engels here describes how they developed the
use of the larynx and the mouth in order to articulate words
and sentences by which to effect this communication.
Ideas
Speech marks the advance from sensation to ideas.
42
Language has words for the properties and relations of
objects which we have come to recognise through our senses in
the course of practical life. And so while we perceive only what is
actually confronting us, according to the impression it makes
on our sense organs, we can speak and think of the obj ects we
perceive not merely in their given relations, with their given
properties, but in different relations and with changed
properties. Hence we can speak and think of what we can
do with objects of different kinds, and how we can change their
properties for various purposes.
In this resides the power of thought. We can think of what
is to be done with things, of changes which we intend to
bring about, and can work out the means to achieve those
changes. In thinking we work out experiments in our heads,
as it were-representing what must be done, what must happen,
in order that some changed state of affairs shall be realised.
The conclusions of the experiment in thought are then checked
by the results of practice. This is the very essence of the
process of thinking, as it arises out of the process of labour.
We should here note that ideas are not the same as images.
The idea or concept of, for example, a colour or shape is
not the same as the image of a colour or of a shape which
we can form in the imagination. The older empiricist philoso­
phers (especially Berkeley and Hume) used to confound ideas
and images ; but, on the contrary, they should be carefully dis­
tinguished. Images are only a continuation of sensation ; but
ideas mark the development of speech, representing an
abstraction from reality and permitting the forming of
generalisations.
No doubt the higher animals as well as man can form i n
their minds sensuous images of objects. For instance, a fox
can no doubt picture to itself the process of finding, hunting,
killing and eating a rabbit, and then proceed to turn this
image into reality. It can, and does, show considerable cunning
and foresight in carrying out its purpose. But a mf!.n who uses
even the simplest instrument of production employs methods
which no other animal could employ. To make and use even
the simplest instruments of production, he must not only have
43
pic tured things to himself but have formed ideas of the
properties of things which can be put to use in realising the
ends he desires.
Thus we can see in what way thought is a higher form of
consciousness than sense-perception. Sense-perception repro­
duces things as they immediately appear through their action
on our sense organs. When we form ideas, on the other hand,
we can think of things in their essential character apart from
their particular existence and mode of appearance ; and so we
can represent to ourselves in thought what transformations
t hings undergo in d i fferent circumstances, how they interact,
their various potentialities, interconnections and laws of
change and motion.
It is evid ent, therefore, what a tremendous leap was made
in the development of consciousness when ideas were formed.
This leap to h u man consciousness was simply the ideal side
of the leap from the ani mal to the human mode of life, made
when men began to design and use tools.
Just as man no longer merely collects, rearranges and uses
natural objects, as animals do, but masters nature, so in his
ideas he does not merely register the appearances of things,
as in perception, but traces their interconnections and causes.
Chapter Four
T H O U G H T , L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
HE
Language and Thought
T
power belonging to ideas, of representing things not
merely in their immediate existence as presented to the
senses but of representing properties and rel ations in abstrac­
tion from particular things-this power is a product of speech.
The development of thinking and the power of thought are
inseparable from. and dependent on the development and
power of speech.
Speech arises, as we have said, in the social activity of man,
a5 a product and instrument, in the first place, of social
labour. From the very beginning it serves as a medium of
human social communication. Speech, therefore, obviously
could not develop as the personal or private possession of
individuals, each of whom uses it for his own purposes without
relation to other individuals. On the contrary, it arises
because, from the beginnings of human social activity, men
need to communicate general ideas and conclusions to one
another-and so they evolve the means of doing this.
Speech, therefore, arises through the formation of a language
common to a social group. Those people know and understand
a language who can use it for communicating with one
another. A common territory, a common economic activity and
tradition go with a common language-and this is why a
common language forms part of the very definition of peoples
and nations.
A language is characterised by vocabulary and syntax-that
is, by a stock of words the constant reference of which has
become fixed in the common use of a social group, and by
45
rules governing the way the words are combined together for
purposes of communication.
It is when men begin to use tools for social production that
they also begin to speak and to evolve a language, and thereby
to form ideas about the surrounding world. It was "from and
in the process of labour" that language originated. And this
origin explains the essential, elementary features of language
as an instrument for communication and exchange of thoughts.
But language which thus originates in man's productive
activity serves the whole of the human social intercourse and
activity that develops along with and on the basis of produc­
tion. In everything that people do together they make use of
language ; and all their thoughts, plans and aspirations, all
their ideas about the world and about one another, come to
birth only because they have language in which to express and
communicate them.
Can there he Thought without Language ?
The study of the nature-the material basis, the functions
and the laws of development-of thought and language leads
to the conclusion that the formation of ideas and the exchange
of ideas are impossible wi thout language, and that ideas only
take shape and develop through the means of language.
Ideas are formed and take shape only through words and
the combination of words. It is by means of words and the
combination of words i n sentences that reality is reproduced
in thoughts. Thoughts only become definite thoughts in so
far as they are, as Stalin expressed it in his Concerning Marxism
in Linguistics, "registered and fixed in words and in words
combined into sentences". Ideas without language are as
non-existent as spirits without bodies.
Does this mean that to think is the same thing as to utter
words, and that the process of thinking is a process of " talking
to oneself" ? No. For in the first place, it is possible to u tter
words and sentences without meaning anything by them. And
in the second place, once one has learned the uses of language
many processes of thought can be performed without actually
uttering, either aloud or " to oneself'', all the words and
46
sentences whose use would be needed for the full enunciation
of the thoughts involved.
It is well known, for example, that with people who have
often discussed some subject together a few words are enough
for Qiem mutually to understand some very complex point,
which it would take many words for them to explain to an
outsider. This is becaase they have been through their
explanations together earlier, and these few words recall all
those explanations.
It is very much the same with thought processes in an
individual brain. One can come to conclusions without the
intervention of elaborate processes of inner verbalisation. But
at the same time, a man deceives himself if he supposes that
he has ideas of things for which he lacks words, or that he has
thoughts which he is unable to express in language.
Of course, this does not mean that there is no distinction
between an idea and some particular word or phrase. It means
that ideas only exist as embodied in particular words or phrases,
which are used to express ideas. Ideas have no separate dis­
embodied existence apart from their expression.
For example, the English word "red" and the French word
"rouge" both express the same idea of a colour. So the idea
cannot be identified with either word. But the idea of colour
no more exists apart from words in which it is expressed, than
colour exists apart from particular coloured objects. What
makes the two words expressive of the same idea is that they
have the same significance in the respective languages-that
is, the two words play similar parts in elaborating through
language connections between man and the external world.
The thinking activity of the brain consists in nothing but such
elaboration of connections with the external world ; and this
is done not prior to language, nor apart from language, but
precisely and only by means of language.
Language Conventions and What They Express
A feature of language is its apparently arbitrary or conven­
tional character. A particular sound is used for a particular
purpose in a language-but some other sound would have
47
done equally well and is, perhaps, used for that very same
purpose in some other language.
The discovery that words are in this way arbitrary or
conventional signs was an important discovery in science,
obvious as it may seem. For it used often to be believed-­
and some people still believe it today-that a particular word
is in some mysterious way "the right word" for a particular
thing, and that words are connected with things by some
internal tie, and not merely by the conventions of language.
The ancient conception of a secret tie between words and
things was bound up with magic and religion. Thus it was
thought that each man had a name which was peculiarly his
own and that no other name for him could fit. His "real name"
was then often kept a secret, for it was believed that if his
enemies knew it, then they could curse his name and so do
him an injury. Similarly, the names of gods were believed
to be among the essential properties of the gods. And similarly
with other words, besides proper names. Thus there was an
old proverb (quoted by C. K. Ogden and I . A. Richards, in
The Meaning of Meaning) which stated, "The Divine is rightly
so called" : this expressed the idea that there was something
peculiarly divine about the word "divine".
But not only is the vocabulary of a language conventional,
its rules of grammar and syntax are conventional too. For
different languages employ different rules. Thus the rules
of the Chinese language, for example, are entirely different
from those of any European language ; the rules of English
are different from those of Latin or Slavonic languages ; and
the rules of what we are pleased to call "primitive" languages
are again different from them all. Nevertheless, the same
propositions can be stated in all these languages, and any one
can be translated into any other. This shows that not only
vocabulary but grammar is a conventional feature oflanguages.
The particular sounds which constitute the words in a given
language, and the particular rules of i ts grammar, are, tJ 1en,
conventional. They are conventional in the sense that these
particular sounds and rules come to be used by a particular
people for historical reasons, whereas the same thoughts could
48
equally well be expressed by different sounds and different
rules, such as are employed by the historically evolved
languages of other peoples. But they are not, of course, con­
ventional in the sense that they were ever resolved upon and
fixed by some linguistic decision of the people concerned. I n
general, linguistic conventions are formed b y an unconscious
process in the lives of peoples. Only at a late stage are they
recorded in dictionaries and grammars and do people begin
consciously and deliberately to record and fix the conventions
of their language.
But while both vocabulary and grammar are in the above
sense conventional, nevertheless what words a language
possesses, in the sense of the objects denoted by its vocabulary,
is not conventional, but is determined by the objective con·
ditions and requirements of life of the people using the
language.
For example, whatever sounds are used for the purpose, a
language must have words for all the things, properties,
relations, etc., which are of practical importance in the life
of the people. In general, the higher the stage of development
of production the greater is necessarily the basic word stock
of language.
Similarly, the relations and connections among things and
people which are expressed by combining words into sentences
according to the rules of grammar and syntax are not con­
ventional either, but are determined by what has to be
reflected in sentences.
For example, whatever the grammar of a language is, it
mus t have conventions for expressing the action of one thing
on another, the connection between a thing and its different
or changing properties, and so on. Different languages employ
different conventions for expressing propositions, but those
conventions must all satisfy the same requirements arising
from what has to be expressed, which is common to all
languages.
Hence while people fix the conventions of their language,
both as regards its word stock and its grammar, those con­
ventions express objective requirements common to every
49
language, and must always satisfy those same requirements.
Language and Logic
V\1hatever thoughts we think, and whatever language they are
expressed in, they must satisfy the basic requirements of the
reflection of reality in thought. These requirements give rise to
laws of thought, to principles of logic. For thoughts are
reflections of the real world, and in the process of reflection, as
Marx said, the material world is translated into forms of
though t. This process of reflection and translation has its own
laws-the l aws of thought, the principles of logic.
The laws of thought involve, in the first place, the logical
principles for constructing significant propositions.
There are, for example, simple propositions and compound
propositions. The construction of simple propositions involves
such logical operations as affirmation, negation, relation and
so on ; and compound propositions are constructed by com­
bining simple propositions through such logical operations as
we express by words like "and", "or" , "if . . . then" , and so on.
Thus, "This is red", "This is not red", "This is getting red",
"This is redder than that" , are all simple propositions. And
"This is red and tha t is green", " Either this is red or I am
colour blind", and " I f this is red then it will soon be green" ,
are compound propositions. The construction of all such
propositions involves definite logical principles governing the
construction of significant propositions.
The laws of thought involve, in the second place, the logical
principles for determining which propositions logically follow
from other propositions and which are logi cally inconsistent
with them . These are the principles which we use in argument
and reasoning.
For example, "If all A is B, and all B is C, then all A is C".
This is a general logi cal principle, which tells us that the third
proposition logically follows from the first two. This particular
principle was originally formulated by Aristotle, who called it
" the first figure of the syllogism" .
Such a principle, of course, contains no guarantee as to
the truth of propositions : it is concerned with their logical
50
relations with one another, not with their truth. Thus it tells
us that if we have discovered that the first two propositions
are true, then we need no further investigations to assure
ourselves of the truth of the third, for it follows from the first
two. But if the first two propositions are in fact untrue, then,
though the third proposition follows from them, it may be
true or it may be false. Logic by itself tells us nothing about
the truth of propositions, which can be discovered and verified
only by empirical investigation.
Another example of a logical principle is the principle of
non-contradiction-which would be better called "the
principle of consistency". This states that a proposition must
not be combined with its negation. The negation of "A is B"
is "A is not B", and if you say "A is B and A is not B", the two
parts of what you say cancel each other out so that you have
said nothing (just as in mathematics plus and minus cancel
each other) . In that case what you say is inconsistent or self­
con tradictory.
It is worth noting that ever since the logical principle of non­
contradiction was first formulated by Aristotle it has led to a lot
of confusion in the discussion of logic. Thus the scholastic
philosophers formulated it as a law governing the way in which
"attributes" belong to "subjects". This alleged law said that
the same attribute cannot both belong and not belong to the
same subject; and it was coupled with a second law, called "the
law of excluded middle" , which said that an attribute must
either belong or not belong to a subject. This was then taken
to mean that you can always decide definitely which is true :
"A is B" or "A is not B". One must be true and the other false.
But it is not difficult to see that such a decision cannot always
be made, so that this is not a correct formulation of a law of
logic. For since things exist only in interconnection and
motion, a thing can very well manifest some characteristic
only in certain respects and relations and not in others-so
that you cannot definitely decide whether it has or has not that
attribute. And it is equally evident that if a thing is in process
of change, it may be impossible either truly to affirm or to
deny that it has some fixed characteristic.
51
Many crude and inaccurate formulations oflogical principles
have been written down by philosophers with a metaphysical
rather than a dialectical approach. Dialectics shows us how to
correct such mistakes. But dialectics does not thereby go
against or change the principles of logic. The aim of the
dialectical method is to enable us logically and consistently to
express the real interconnections and motion of things.
For example, is a certain man "bald" or "not bald" ?
According to the scholastic or metaphysical philosophers, with
their inaccurate formulation of logical principles, a definite
decision must always be made. Yet while in some cases it may
be possible to decide, in many other cases no such definite
decision is possible. Are we then, in such cases, driven to
accept an inconsistency : "He is bald and he is not bald" ? Not
at all. Such cases can be consistently described by means of a
qualification : "He is partly bald" or "He is going bald".
People with a metaphysical approach try to express chang­
ing things in fixed categories, and try to express the relations of
things in categories suited only to considering things in separa­
tion. As a result, they are often landed in inconsistency. Just as
when a motor car splutters we know there is something wrong
with the engine, so when a person contradicts himself we
know there is something wrong with his ideas. Dialectics
enables us to order our ideas so as to keep dear of logical
contradictions and to be absolutely consistent. Hence dialectics
always respects the logical principle of non-contradiction or
consistency, although metaphysics often leads to its violation.
Logical principles are laws of thought, not laws of reality ;
they are not the laws of material processes, but the laws of the
reflection of material processes. And because they are require­
ments of the reflection of reality in thought, arising from the
very nature of the form of the reflection as it has developed in
the course of human practice, the laws of logic require to be
satisfied in the working out and expression of views. If our
thoughts violate the laws of logic, then they become incoherent
and self-contradictory.
This accounts for what is sometimes called the "normative,.
character of the laws of logic, and for their character of
52
"logical" as opposed to "n atural" necessity. Our thoughts
need not be logical, but unless they are they cannot satisfy
the requirements of the reflection of reality : this is why the
laws of logic constitute a "norm" for thought. And the laws
of logic arise from the very nature of thought, quite indepen­
dent of the particular object of thought : this is why the laws of
logic have a self-evident and axiomatic character, as distinct
from the laws of nature, which have to be discovered through
an empirical investigation of external reality.
So whatever the views which are being worked out in society,
they are all subordinate to the same laws of thought, to the
same principles of logic. Just as the same language is used
to express different views, so do different views employ the
same laws of thought, the same logic.
New views do not, therefore, give rise to a new logic, any
more than they give rise to a new language. On the contrary,
the principles of logic are inherent in the very process of
thought and of its expression in language, and are not altered
with alterations of views.
Some people, of course, ignore logic in the working out
of their views. So much the worse for their views. This does
not mean that they have evolved a different logic, but rather
that they fail to be logical .
No discussion, no controversy or argument, no development
of thought whatever would be possible, if the laws of thought
changed and were different for different people. Anyone who
thinks that the laws of though t change, that differen t epochs
have a different logic, thereby den ies the very possibility of
thought as a reflection of objective reality. Logic arises from
the universal requirements of the reflection of reality in
thought, and not from the particular interests which particular
processes of thought may serve from time to time.
Hence if, for example, a socialist is arguing with a defender
of capi talism, they both appeal to and try to base their argu­
ments on the same principles of logi c, just as they both speak
the same language . .Just as "two plus two equals four" for the
accountant of a capitalist or of a socialist enterprise, so "if all
A is B, then some A is B" for a defender of socialism or of
53
capi talism. Similarly, anyone who has read accounts of the
labours of Christian missionaries among primitive peoples will
realise that both parties to the argument appeal to the same
la"''S of logic, though it must be confessed that the primi tive
people are often more logical than the missionaries.
What is here said about logic does not, however, apply to
the philosophical vie"''S expounded by those who have wri tten
books abou t logic. Those philosophical views, often labelled
"Logic", are, of course, the vie.,.,'S of particular classes and
of particular epochs.
Thus we conclude that language develops as the means of
express i ng and communicating thoughts by people in society,
arising from and developed in the course of their productive
activity and all their other social activity ; and that the thoughts
of men, expressed in l anguage, are subordinate to logic, to
the la"''S of thought as reflection of material reality. At the same
time, the social views which are expressed in language and
worked out with the aid of logic develop on the basis of men's
economic rel ations, of the activities and interests of social
class es .
54
Part Two
THE DE VELOPMENT OF IDEAS
Chapter Five
AB S T R A C T I D EA S
HILE
The Formation of Abstract Ideas
W
thought and ideas, like language, originate from
labour, men likewise develop their thinking and their
ideas in the course of the whole of their social activity.
Writing of the development of ideas or of human conscious­
ness-for the peculiarity of human consciousness is that man is
conscious of things not only through perceptions but also
through ideas-Marx and Engels showed that man's con­
sciousness arises and develops "only from the need, the
necessity, of intercourse with other men
Consciousn ess
is therefore from the very beginning a social product, and
remains so as long as men exist at all." ( The German Ideology,
Part I, chapter x .)
Ideas are not the products of a pure in tellectual process,
nor are they mere automatic responses to stimuli reaching us
from external objects. They are produced by human brains
in the course of human social activity. They reflect the con­
nections of men with one another and with the external
world, the real conditions of men's existence.
Marx and Engels went on to point out that "consciousness
is at first merely consciousness concerning the i mmediate
sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited con­
nections with other persons and things . . . . This beginning",
they added, "is as animal as social life itself at this stage. It
is mere herd consciousness".
The first and most elementary ideas are ideas directly derived
from immediate practical intercourse with other people and
surrounding objects. They are formed by giving names to
.
57
•
•
•
the common features of things recognisable in perception. From
the start, as :\farx has stressed, "the production of ideas"
a rises from " the material activity and material intercourse of
men". And out of this activity and material intercourse at its
most elementary level is already formed a complex of elemen­
tary ideas of external objects, of the self and of o ther people­
of the kinds and properties of objects and their various
connections with and uses for people.
In such ideas are more or less directly reflected the salient
features of objects and human activities as we are immediatel y
aware of them in perception. Such ideas consti tute the basic,
elementary equipment of human thought and communication.
They are expr essed in words denoting familiar objects, and
properties and relations of obj ects, and everyday activities.
\Ve all possess a rich equipment of such ideas. Our possession
of them represents a considerable social achievement, but we
take them quite for granted, use them all the time, and every
child learns them at an early age. Such are our ideas of the
things about us with which our normal affairs are concerned,
such as men and women, tables, chairs, motor cars, trees,
flowers, dogs, cats, etc . , etc. ; of sensible properties of things,
such as red, blue, hard , soft, big, small, and so on ; and of
actions and relations, such as running, walking, falling, above,
below, e tc . , etc. Our own equipment of elementary ideas is
obviously far greater than that of primitive man, precisely
because we do many more things and concern ourselves with
many more objects and relations. Nevertheless, the conscious­
ness represented by such elementary ideas remains, as Marx
and Engels put it, "consciousness concerning the immediate
sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited
connections with other persons and things".
The feature of such elementary ideas is that they have a
concrete, sensuous content, because to them correspond objects
directly perceptible to the senses. The development of social
intercourse, however, leads to the formation of ideas to which
no directly perceptible object con-esponds.
Can we form ideas to which no directly perceptible object
corresponds ? Yes, of course we can, and we do. For example,
58
men are directly perceptible objects, and their properties of
being tall, short, thin, fat, and so on, are directly perceptible
properties. But we also think of men in terms other than these,
although nothing directly evident to the senses corresponds to
what we think about them. If I see a very fat man and say
"He's a bloated capitalist", his perceptible fatness corres­
ponds to the word "bloated", but no corresponding property
corresponds to the word "capitalist" . Nevertheless, the ideas of
"capitalist" and "capitalism" are well thought-out, well
established ideas. We are, in fact, continually employing in
ordinary speech, and still more in theoretical work, an
enormous range of such ideas. For example, all kinds of social
and political ideas, moral and legal ideas, scientific ideas,
aesthetic ideas and philosophical ideas are of this kind.
To understand how such ideas arise, and their function in
the processes of thought in which the world is reflected in terms
of ideas, we should remember that ideas are always embodied
in words. To have an idea is to have the use of certain words,
and different kinds of ideas correspond to different uses of
words. If, then, one says that "The fat man is running", one
is using words in such a way as to refer to the perceptible
motion (running) of a perceptible object (a fat man) . It is
quite easy to explain what one means. One needs only point to
a fat man, and to someone running, and say : "I mean that a
man like that is doing that." If, on the other hand, one says
"The capitalist exploits the workers", one is still referring to
certain familiar sensible objects (men), but one is at the same
time making a generalisation about them which refers to a
relationship between them which is not open to immediate
observation but which requires a very elaborate definition in
terms of other relationships. One cannot explain what one
means by "capitalist" and "exploitation" in the same way
as one can explain what one means by "fat" and "running". A
complicated explanation of another kind is required-the sort
of explanation which Marx required many pages of Capital to
elaborate. The idea of "capitalist exploitation" is derived by
generalisation, not from the direct comparison of a number of
perceptible objects, but from reflection upon very complicated
59
processes and relationships in which such objects are involved.
Our ideas, then, are not confined to the reflection of the
common features of external objects presented to the senses.
Ideas are always formed according to the needs of social
intercourse. And with the development of production and the
consequent development of production relations, and of social
relations and social activity generally, ideas are developed
beyond the stage of consciousness of the common features of
objects perceived through the senses. Men form general con­
cepts and views about the world and their own social life.
Such ideas become formed and embodied in words and uses
of words as a product of men's active relationship to external
nature and to one another, and serve the development of
social intercourse based on those relationships. But no directly
perceptible objects correspond to them.
It is to such ideas that the term "abstract" is commonly
applied.
The Sources of Abstract Ideas
All abstract ideas, without exception, have their source through
experience in the objective material world, in men's practical
relations with things and with one another. For it is definite
experiences of men, derived from their intercourse with one
another and with nature, which lead them to form abstract
ideas. These ideas serve the continuance and development of
that intercourse. And they reflect definite relations objectively
existing between things, between men, and between men and
things, which are translated in the minds of men into terms
of ideas.
One important source of the development of abstract ideas
is the development of social relationships between people. Thus,
for example, the primitive gen tile organisation of society­
with its complicated rules about who can marry whom, who
belongs to what gens, and, in general, who can do what-gives
rise to a whole set of ideas about social relationships, which
are at once the products of those social relationships and their
regulators. Later, ideas of social status, chieftainship and so
on arise. And later, with the development of property, ideas
60
connected with property relations.
For example, when certain people have taken possession of
the land, then there are formed ideas of landownership and of
corresponding duties, rights and privileges. Such ideas of
ownership are abstract ideas, to which corresponds no obj ect
immediately perceptible to the senses. Thus the idea of a
ploughed field, say, is the idea of a reality presented to our
senses ; but the idea of the ownership of that field is an abstract
idea to which no directly perceptible obj ect corresponds.
Similarly, the produce of that field is a concrete, perceptible
reality-we can eat it, for exampl e ; but the right of the land­
owner to take possession of that product is not perceptible.
But these abstract ideas are the ideal reflection of something
real and obj ective-the production relations established at a
definite stage of the evolution of social production.
Other abstract ideas are formed as a consequence of the
development of men's productive and other activities con­
cerned with external nature. For example, this is the source of
such ideas as those of cause and effect, and, again, of all ideas
concerned with counting and measuring, such as those of
number, space and time.
One very important influence in the development of men's
ideas is their relative ignorance and helplessness in the midst of
their social activities. This starts off the development of all
kinds of mystical and illusory abstract ideas.
At a very early stage of society people begin to think about
the underlying causes which operate in the various process es
with which they are familiar and on which they depend for
their livelihood. Thus, for example, people see the crops
growing or the animals multiplying, and they are aware of
what they themselves have to do to promote these processes.
But they do not see and are not aware of the underlying
causes which operate in these processes, nor have they any
but most inadequate means of controlling them. And so they
begin to form the concepts of u nseen powers. Most primitive
peoples have the concept of a secret power residing in men,
animals and things, which they regard as something not
perceptible to the senses which nevertheless penetrates and
61
controls all sensible things. Thus certain Red I ndian tribes
called this power wakanda, and one of their elders, trying to
explain the idea to a visiting anthropologist, told him : "No
man has ever seen wakanda." From this type of abstract idea­
this idea of unseen powers-develop the abstract ideas of
religion and theology.
Division of Mental from Material Labour
Abstract ideas are formed, as we can see from these few
examples, as a consequence of the process of social develop­
ment. And Marx and Engels connected the development of
abstract ideas with the fundamental social process of division
of labour.
The formation of all abstract ideas-of whatever type, and
whatever the particular source of the ideas-presupposes a
certain development of men's productive powers and social
relations. It therefore presupposes a certain division of labour.
This division oflabour begins to separate the single productive
group or "herd" into distinct individuals-distinct not merely
as different members of the species but as persons with distinct
social functions and positions, with individuality. This gives
rise to the activities, relations and experiences from which the
formation of abstract ideas arises. And it likewise brings to
an end the stage of "herd" consciousness, and permits the
development of individual thought.
\Vith the formation of abstract ideas, a division of mental
from material labour appears. It marks a definite beginning
of mental as distinct from material labour. And with this, there
begin to appear wise men, elders and leaders of various kinds
who are the specialists in ideas and who expound and develop
them. This specialisation in ideas develops as an indispensable
feature of social life ; for without ideas, division of labour and
the various consequent productive processes and social rela­
tions cannot be maintained or developed. And so Marx and
Engels observed in The German Ideology : "Division of labour
only becomes truly such from the moment when a division of
mental and material Jabour appears."
In general, the formation of abstract ideas corresponds to
62
new social needs arising. At the same time, the development
of ideas becomes a special form of social activity, a special
department of the division of labour. And the ensuing separa­
tion of mental from material labour then leads to further
consequences.
Once an abstract idea is formed and embodied in words,
then the possibility arises that these words will be taken to
refer to special kinds of objects which exist apart from the
objects of the material world which are reflected in sense·
perceptions. And this possibility is the more apt to be realised,
the more the handling of abstract ideas becomes a special social
activity separated from material labour.
It is obvious that this takes place with concepts of unseen
powers, supernatural beings, and so on. The people who
employ these ideas consider that certain mysterious beings and
powers, whose existence is separate from and independent of
the existence of perceptible, material things, correspond to the
ideas. And the witch doctors, priests or theologians who
specialise in such ideas work out the most elaborate doctrines
in terms of them.
But similar illusions can grow up around all abstract ideas.
Abstract ideas are such that no directly perceptible object
corresponds to theJll . But they do relate to perceptible objects.
To explain such an idea, to say what the word in which it is
embodied means, it is necessary to refer to definite perceptible
obj ects and processes and their relationships which are reflected
in the idea. On the other hand, it is possible to forget about the
concrete reality which is reflected in ideas, and to manipulate
ideas as though they dealt with some separate realm of
abstractions revealed to the intellect but independent of the
perceptible world of experience and practice.
"The approach of the mind to a particular thing, the taking
of a cast ofit," wrote Lenin, in his Philosophical Notebooks, "is not
a simple, direct act, a lifeless mirror reflection, but a complex,
twofold, zig-zag act, which harbours the possibility that the
fantasy may entirely fly away from reality. What is more, it
harbours the possibility that the abstract idea may be trans­
formed, imperceptibly and unwittingly, into fantasy-and
63
in the long nm, into God. For even the simplest generalisation
and the most elementary general idea is a fragment of fantasy."
This "flying away" of the abstract idea from reality is the
more apt to take place, the more mental labour is divorced
from material labour, the more theoretical activity is divorced
from practical activity.
With the development of abstract ideas, then, thinking is
no longer tied down to the features of things and the connec­
tions of persons and things of which we are immediately aware
in practice through the senses. And just because thinking
becomes the special province of mental as distinct from material
labour, all the more does it cut loose from the practice and the
experiences of ordinary working life. It becomes free to
elaborate all manner of general concepts and general views
about the world and about society. What we think becomes
distinct from what we experience or perceive.
"From this moment onwards," wrote Marx and Engels, in
The Germarz Ideology, "consciousness can really flatter itself
that it is something other than consciousness of existing
practice, that it is really conceiving something without con­
ceiving something real [i.e., something directly perceptible to
the senses-M.C.] . From now on, consciousness is in a position
to emancipate itself from the world and to proceed to the
formation of 'pure' theory, theology, philosophy, ethics, etc."
Learning How to Think
A condition for the development of abstract ideas is the
separation of mental from material labour. And it contains
within itself contradictory potentialities. On the one hand, it
permits the acquisition of profounder knowledge of the real
connections of things and of the conditions of human existence
than is contained in immediate perceptual consciousness. On
the other hand, it permits the growth of all kinds of fantasies
and illusions.
Consequently the whole process of the intellectual develop­
ment of society presents contradictory aspects. On the one
hand, there has been the undoubted growth of genuine know­
ledge, in other words, of true ideas, whose correspondence
64
with reality has been verified, concerning nature, society and
the relations of men with nature. On the other hand, there
has been the growth and elaboration of illusory ideas. &
society has developed, so men have developed in their minds
illusions about themselves and the world they inhabit. Each
epoch has added to the sum total of human knowledge. And at
the same time, each epoch has produced its characteristic
i llusions, which circumscribed, penetrated and coloured the
entire intellectual production of that epoch.
It is here, then, that we find the root of the opposition and
struggle of materialist and idealist tendencies which has run
right through the whole development of thought.
The opposition of materialist and idealist tendencies is a
fundamental opposition, arising from the very nature of
thought itself, once i t has developed to the level of abstract
ideas. It arises with the separation of mental from material
labour. 'When mental Jabour first begins to "emancipate itself
from the world" as a theoretical activity, and to "become
something other than existing practice", then there immedi­
ately arise the two alternative paths of theory-to strive to
understand things in their own connections and to explain
what happens in the material world from the material world
itself, which is materialism ; or to launch out into the realm of
pure thought and represent the material, sensuous world as
dependent on thought and the product of thought, which is
idealism. In other words, to regard being as prior to thinking,
or thinking as prior to being.
Understood in this light, the struggle of the materialist
tendency in thought against the idealist tendency is understood
as a struggle, carried forward through ages of human history
from primitive times up to the present day and into the future,
to learn to think truthfully and correctly, in a way that truth­
fully reflects the real conditions of human existence and helps
human progress. It is the struggle for knowledge and
enlightenment against ignorance and superstition.
Chapter Six
I D E O L O GY
Naretheusedcourse
of the development of society abstract ideas
for the elaboration of more or less systematic
Itheories,
doctrines or views about things. General views and
The Formation of Ideologies
ways of thinking, systems of abstract ideas, become established
as characteristic of the ou tlook of a whole society, or of a
section of society.
And considerable differences exis t between the views enter­
tained in different societies and in different stages of social
development. Each possesses its typical social views of poli tics,
morali ty, law, property, religion, philosophy-and these views
penetrate social thinking on all particular topics, and mould
and influence the development of ideas of all individuals.
With the development of private property and the state, for
example, ideas about l egal and political "rights" are always
formed. But in different stages of the development of property,
the views which are held about rights-the cheories which
are en tertained about them, the systematic doctrines about
rights-vary considerably. In slave society, slaves were thought
to have no rights whatever. In feudal society, everyone was
thought to have rights, but the character of his rights depended
on his actual posi tion in the feudal order, so that the rights ofa
serf were not equal to those of a lord. \Vi th the rise of capital­
ism, the theory of "human rights" began to be formed-the
view that every man, simpl y as a human being, possesses
certain "inalienable human rights" which are the same for all
men-and there has been a great deal of argument as to the
66
exact <lefinition of these rights and from what th ey may be
deduced.
Again, from the Yery begi nnings of social production people
have formed ideas about the causal processes in nature. But
in different stages of society the views abou t causality in
nature have varied considerabl y. The most primi tive theory is
th e theory of animism, which thinks of everything as t hough
it were alive and conscious. Later o n , animism is gi ven up,
and every t hi n g is thought to be directed by i ts specific form
or p ri nciple, which determines its nature, its place in the
hierarchy o f bei ng and its peculiar ways of acti ng on other
t hi ngs a n d re a ctin g to them. This view of ca u sal i ty was
elaborated i n great detail duri ng the Middle Ages. Then again
there has developed the mechanistic view of causa l i ty which
was characteristic of the begi nnings of modern natural science,
according to which the mo ti o ns of al l bodies are governed
by a si ngl e set of natura l laws and everything that happe ns
is determined by the external interactions of bodies taking pla c e
in accordance with these laws.
Such more or less sys t e ma tic views, which arc historically
evolved by definite social groups in d e fi nite stages of social
development, and which vary according to their social ori gin,
are called ideologies. An d the development of such views is
called ideological development.
The Material Basis ef Ideolog ical Develnpmenl
Id eology is ess ent iall y a social rather than an individual
product. In deal i ng with the development of ideology, we are
dealing with the social development of ideas. We are not so
much concerned with how iJ e a s are fo rm ed and elaborated
in the mind of the individua l , as wi t h how broad currents of
i d ea s are form ed as c haract e ri stic of a whole phase of social
development
Of course, individuals contribu te a5 individuals, according
to their capaci ti es and ci rcumstances, to the formation of
ideol ogies. O n t he other h a n d, the ideologies preva il ing or
rising in society a l ways con st itute t h e background and condi­
tion for the development of the opinions and views of every
.
•
67
-------·--
individual in society. Individuals, in their own opinions and
views, are always influenced by the ideologies, express them,
are their mouthpieces.
In the course of social development there is change and
development of ideology. One ideology supplants another. And
in the same society, different and rival ideologies interact and
clash with one another. But ideology has no independent
development. There is no "history of thought", independent
of the development of the material conditions of social life.
An ideology is always the ideology of definite people, living
in definite conditions, depending for their life on a definite
mode of production, with definite social relations, doing
definite things with definite desires and aims. And their
ideology is not formed independently of the process of their
material life.
"\Ve set out from real, active men," wrote Marx and Engels,
"and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the
development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life
process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also,
necessarily, sublimates of their material life process, which is
empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality,
religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology, and their corre­
sponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the
semblance of independence. They have no history, no develop­
ment ; but men, developing their material production and their
material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence,
their thinking and the products of their thinking." ( T/14
German Ideology, Part I, chapter 1 .)
It is the development of production, and the consequent
development of production relations and of the social inter­
course based on them, which give rise to the conditions for the
formation of abstract ideas and to the social need for the
ideological development of such ideas. Ideologies develop not
as a consequence of the inner working of men's minds going
on independently of the material life of society but as a con­
sequence of the development of the material life of society,
which conditions the products of intellectual production.
In class-divided society, therefore, ideologies take on a class
68
character. Different views are developed on the basis of the
different places occupied by different classes in social produc­
tion, their different relationships to the means of production,
their different roles in the social organisation of labour, their
different ways of obtaining their share of the social wealth,
their different material interests. The different ideologies are
thus developed in the service of different class interests.
The Ideological Reflection of Reality
Ideological development is, then, governed by the material
development of society-by the development of production, of
the relations of production, and of classes and the class
struggle.
Hence the causes impelling ideological development in one
or another direction are always to be found, in the last analysis,
not within the sphere of ideological development itself but
in the sphere of the conditions of material life. To explain, for
example, why the bourgeois idea of human rights supplanted
the feudal idea of rights, it is necessary to consider the changes
taking place in the mode of production of material life-for
these changes gave rise to a contradiction between the feudal
idea of rights and the actual rights the recognition of which
was necessary to carry on the bourgeois mode of production,
and necessitated a change in the idea of rights to correspond
with reality. Similarly, in the sphere of ideas about nature,
these same changes in the mode of production imparted a new
direction to the development of ideas about nature. And in
general, feudal ideology was supplanted by bourgeois ideology
because, in the material life of society, feudal social relations
were being supplanted by bourgeois social relations.
But at the same time, ideological development, as a develop­
ment of abstract thinking, has its own special characteristics,
its own internal laws. Its direction is determined by the
development of the material life of society, and every ideology
is developed on the basis of definite material social relation­
ships and activities in the service of definite material interests.
But it remains none the less true that ideology must always
satisfy certain intellectual requirements, and that these
6g
requirements are continually posed and met in the course of
ideological development.
Ideologies are developed to serve definite class interests. They
are intellectual instruments, intellectual weapons, made and
forged by definite classes corresponding to the material posi tion
and requirements of those classes. Bu t j ust because they are
in tellectual instruments and intellectual weapons, to be service­
able they must sa tis fy intellectual requirements. They must
obey the rules of working with ideas, just as, for example,
material instruments and material weapons must obey the
rules of working with, say, metals.
From what do these internal, intellectual requirements of
ideological development arise ? They arise irom the fact that
ideology is a reflection of the real, material world in the form
of abstract ideas. Every ideology is an attempt made by people
to understand and give an account of the real world in which
they live, or of some aspect of it and of their own lives, so
that it may be of service to them in t he definite conditions
in which they live. Therefore they must always strive to develop
their ideology as a coherent system of ideas which squares
with the facts so far as they have ex perie n c ed and ascertained
them. This poses intellectual requirements to be satisfied by
ideologies, and to satisfy them is a law which is continually
at work influencing the development of ideologies.
Ideologies must be made to satisfy, in the first place, the
gener al requirements of the reflection of reality in ideas, that
is to say, the laws of logic. I n the second place, t hey must
sa t i sfy the particular requirements of the reflection of a par­
ticular part of reality, that is to say, they must be made to
square with the facts so far as people have experienced and
ascertained them.
Ideologies, therefore, arc de vel o ped on the basis of the given
structure of society to s e rve the in terests of one or another
class, and in this ideological developmen t the effort is always
being made to render the views developed self-consistent and
logical , and to make them cover and give some consistent
account of the principal facts which emerge in the experience
of society at the given stage of development.
70
This gives rise to continual contradictions in the develop·
ment of ideologies. For on the one hand, the views developed
by the representatives of various classes prove logically
inconsistent and inconsistent with plain facts ; and on the
other hand, facts and the requirements of logic l ead to con·
clusions which do not accord with views tenaciously held.
Such contradictions give rise to a continual process of the
elaboration of ideologies, as the ideologists endeavour to find
ways and means of resolving them.
The Criticism of Ideologies
No matter what field of ideas is in question, the development
of ideas expresses the effort to argue them out, make them
consistent, present them logically, and adapt them to the facts
of experience. And this effort plays a major part i n the detailed
elaboration of ideologies. Indeed, the more concretely we study
the development of particular ideologies-that is to say, the
more we study their development in detail, rather than con·
fining attention to their most general features-the more is it
necessary to take into account the intellectual aspect of idea.
logical development. For the effort to square up ideas with
obtrusive facts, and to eliminate contradictions and present a
consisten t, argued case, influences very greatly the real develop­
ment of ideas. And in the course of this development, it
inevitably happens that the expression of economic relations
and class interests in the given field of ideas becomes less
obvious, less direct, more obscure and roundabout.
Thus Engels wrote, for instance, of the development of
legal ideology :
"Law must not only correspond to the general economic
condition and be its expression, but must also be an internally
co he rent expression which does not, owing to inner contradic·
tions, reduce itself to nought. And in order to achieve this, the
faithful reflection of economic conditions suffers increasingly
Thus to a great extent the course of the 'development of
law' only consis t�, first, in the attempt to do away with the
contradictions arising from the direct translation of economic
relations into legal principles and to establish a harmonious
•
•
•
•
71
system of l aw, and then in the repeated ·breaches made in this
system by the influence and pressure of further economic
development, which involves it in further contradictions."
(Letter to C. Schmidt, October 2 7, 1 890.)
The same process takes place in all ideological spheres-in
philosophy, theology, moral ideas, ideas about nature, and
so on.
I deologi es are alw ays peculiarly vulnerable and open to
criticism on the score of self-contradiction and of failure to
reckon with experienced facts. Those who, as i n tellectual
represen ta tives of a given class, espouse a general point of
view in ideology, are always being driven for this reason to
elaborate their ideology, which leads them to the creation of
often very complicated and far-fetched ideological structures.
Then again, as Engels obs e rved, the structures become unsuit­
able for the service of the given interests in new conditions, and
the process begins anew. This shows itself in phil osophy, for
instance , in the multiplication of "systems" of philosophy.
If this process of criticism g oes on in the development of
the ideology of a particular class, it takes a different and
sharper form when, on the basis of new factors in the material
life of society, new and rival views begin to be formed,
expressing the interests of different classes. Such new views
do not emerge un til the deve lopment of material life gives
birth to them. But once they emerge, then they attack from
the new point of view the manifold inconsistencies of the
already established views. They make use of logic and appeal
to facts as po werfu l intellectual weapons with which to
discredit and demolish the old views.
Historians of ideas have most often erred by attempti n g to
understand ideol ogical development exclusively in terms of
the posing and satisfaction of intellectual requirements. As
Marx and Engels pointed out, tha t cannot be done, since one
cannot say why new views should arise at particular times,
or why the views should be of one rather than a n o th e r type,
without l ooki n g for the reasons in the material life of society.
But it is also i m possibl e to trace the d evel opm en t of ideologies
without taking the intellectual requi rement s into account. And
72
Marxism certainly never says that we should attempt to do so.
This is the opposite error into which some schools of
sociologists have fallen-namely, those who embrace the doc­
trine of "economic determinism'', which regards economic
activity as the sole agency determining the whole of social
development in all its aspects. Failing to recognise that in
ideology there takes place a process of the reflection of the real
world in men's ideas, they regard ideology exclusively as a
development of various ideas expressing and serving various
material, economic interests. This leads them to one or other
of two conclusions. On the one hand, they conclude that since
all ideas are merely practical instruments serving various
material interests, no ideas, including their own, can lay any
claim correctly to reflect reality-so that every ideology,
including their own, is as illusory as every other in all respects.
On the other hand, they are led to make an exception of them­
selves and of their own ideas, representing themselves as
special people who, by some intellectual miracle, have trans­
cended every class point of view and can look down on the
rest of mankind from an ivory tower of complete and absolute
"objectivity". In either case, they are clearly involved in self­
con tradiction.
However, there is always and always has been a basis for the
criticism of ideologies in terms of reason and experience­
that is to say, for their critical comparison with reality. And
this comparison has been continually carried out in the course
of ideological development itself. It has not been carried out
by people who have managed to detach themselves from social
life, for such people do not exist ; but it has been carried out
in the course of the long development of human practice-of
production, of science and of the cl ass struggle.
Thus in the development of ideologies there does take place a
development of the truthful and coherent reflection of the real
world in men's ideas. For the continuous process of reckoning
with facts and striving for consistency-despite all the intellec­
tual dishonesty, special pleading, invention , fantasy, sophism
and inconsistency which accompanies it at every stage-does
con ti nuously yield positive results. And these results are con73
tinuously verified, consolidated, criticised and carried forward
through the developing practice of mankind.
Truth and Illusion in Ideologies
All ideas are a reflection of objective material reality, which
is their ultimate source. But while, as we have just seen, there
is a development in ideology of the truthful reflection of reali ty
in ideas, this takes place amid a development of all kinds of
illusions, of distorted, fantastic reflection of reality.
The opposi tion and interpenetration of truth and illusion
in ideological development expresses the fact that the reflection
of reality in ideas is effected in different ways, through different
processes, by different routes.
One way in which our ideas about things are formed and
elaborated is in the process of our practical interaction with
things, founded on and tested in practical experience, and
further developed by scientific investigation of real processes,
of the real properties of things, their motions and inter­
connections. In so far as ideas about things are formed in this
way, the ideas and conclusions about them embodied in
ideologies are more or less truthful-that is to say, they more
or less correctly reflect reality and correspond with it.
But this is not the only way in which ideas are formed. They
are also formed in a more indirect and roundabout way. And
ideas formed in a more indirect and roundabout way are
profoundly influential in the formation of ideologies.
This roundabout proi:ess which en ters into the formation
of ideologies involves three main steps. First, abstract ideas
are formed on the basis of various social relationships and
experiences of people. Second, those abstract ideas are
separated from the actual experiences and relationships from
which they were derived. Third, both particular conclusions
and general ideas about all kinds of things are then worked out
with the aid of those abstract ideas.
For example, when society divides into classes and a rulin g
class is formed, then, on the basis of definite social relations
and social experiences and activities, there is formed the
idea of the rela tionship between ruler and ruled and of the
74-
power and prerogatives of the ruler. From that, the next s tep
is to separate this abstract idea from the actual experiences
and relationships from which it was originally derived, to
consider it as expressing a general truth abou t the universe,
and t" go on to form the idea of God, the ruler of the universe.
The third and last step is to proceed to interpret existing social
relations as decreed by God, and to interpret nature as the
creation of God.
When ideas about things are formed and worked out in this
way, it means that we are approaching things with certain
more or less fixed preconceptions about them already in our
minds. Indeed, such preconceptions are often so fixed in our
minds as a result of education and habit, that we never dream
of questioning them, but take them as axioms, as natural and
obvious ways of thinking. And then we form our general views
and particul ar conclusions about things not primarily as a
result of critical investigation and practical verification of
conclusions but i ndependent of practice, uncritically, without
investigation.
When ideas about things are formed in this way, then they
generally cease to be truthful and become more or less illusory.
They do not correctly reflect and correspond with reality, but,
on the contrary, they give an incorrect, illusory, fantastic or
distorted picture of reality.
Illusions, however, are always founded in reality. They are
not pure invenuons of the mind, but they arise, as we have
just seen, by a process of forming ideas from one source, and
then extrapolating them (i.e., extending them beyond the
sphere in which they were originally established) and using
them as preconceptions applied in many different contexts,
replacing the critical formation and verification of ideas
through actual practice and experience.
Every illusion has i ts source in reality. It reflects definite
conditions of material life, arises from definite social relations,
experiences and activities. That is why many illusions are so
persistent. It is not simply a q uestion of the indoctrination of
individuals with certain illusory ideas, but it is a question of
existing social relations continually generating certain illusions,
75
and of these illusions serving definite material interests.
Illusions take two main forms.
In the first place, there arise ill usions about real things­
misconceptions of real processes and relations familiar in
experience and practice. Such, for example, is the illusion that
certain social relations and institutions follow from human
nature, or were decreed by Reason.
In the second place, illusions develop into sheer mythology
and fa ntasy, the invention of imaginary things. Thus people
not only misconceive nature and society, both of which really
exist, but they also form ideas of heaven and hell, of the
spiritual world, and so on, which have no existence ; they invent
all kinds of imaginary beings, such as gods, fairies and devils.
In this connection, we should note that illusion cannot be
simply equated with error. Of course, illusion is error; but
it is a special kind of error.
Suppose, for example, that someone says that thirteen
squared equals 1 66. This is a simple error, an error in calcula­
tion (since the right answer is 1 69) . But suppose, on the other
hand, he says that thirteen is an unlucky number. This is not
like an error in calculation, which can be made by people
possessing on the whole correct ideas about numbers. It
expresses an illusion, namely, the illusion that numbers are
lucky or unlucky. Such an error does not arise simply from a
mistake in operating with numbers, but it arises from applying
to numbers preconceived ideas about luck which, though they
have a definite source in experience and practice, are wrongly
and uncritically applied to numbers.
Similarly, if someone says that the British Constitution was
introduced into Parliament by Oliver Cromwell, this is an
erroneous statement, arising from an insufficient study of
British constitutional history. But suppose he says that the
British Constitution is an expression of the unique genius of
the Anglo-Saxon race, or is God's gift to the British people.
These statements, though also erroneous, are not simply errors
in history. They arise from applying to social affairs precon­
ceived ideas about racial genius or God.
Thus illusions constitute a special kind of error, arising
76
from a quite definite mode of misconceiving things in terms
of preconceived ideas.
Scientific and Illusory Ideology
Both processes of the formation of abstract ideas-that is
to say, both the process of forming more or less truthful ideas
critically through practical experience and interaction with
things, and the process of forming more or less illusory ideas
as preconceptions applied in the formation of views-enter
into the formation of actual ideologies. At the same time, one
or other of these processes may dominate in the constitution
of particular ideologies, so that they are predominantly
scientific in the one case or predominantly illusory and
unscientific in the other case.
All ideology in class-divided society is developed by the
intellectual representatives of definite classes, and corresponds
to the actual position and serves the requirements of definite
classes in their class struggle. This being so, we can see how
inevitably the two processes interact and interpenetrate in
the formation of class ideologies.
On the one hand, in so far as the interests of a class do
demand a true apprehension of reality based on critical investi·
gation of some kind, its ideology does contain a scientific
element. For example, the class interests of the capitalist class
certainly do require that considerable work should be done
on discovering the real laws governing various natural proces·
ses, and such discoveries do play their part in bourgeois
ideology. The same i nterests also require that certain social
investigations should be carried on, and from this source again
a certain scientific element does enter into bourgeois ideology.
On the other hand, in so far as the interests of a class and
the place it occupies in social production give rise to certain
preconceptions and illusions which serve the class in its
struggle, its ideology is illusory. And so, for example, if we
consider bourgeois i deology, there are many elements in it
which merely embody the illusions of the bourgeois class and
the views peculiar to bourgeois society.
Bourgeois ideology, indeed, is formed by the development
77
<>---- --·-·---
of both processes. And this gives rise to contradictions in its
development, since the products of the two processes con­
tinually come into contradiction and the resolution of such
contradictions has to be sought in the development of ideology.
The same has been true of the ideologies of other classes,
though the scientific element is far stronger in bourgeois
ideology, so that the contradictions have become sharper.
Thus, in the development of bourgeois philosophy, for
example, there has been a continual effort to reconcile
scientific discoveries with bourgeois preconceptions. The most
obvious way in which this contradiction has expressed i tself in
bourgeois philosophy is in the contradiction between the
materialist picture of the world afforded by scientific
discoveries and the religious views which form an essential
part of the ideological preconceptions. Philosophers have con­
tinually sought ways and means ofresolving this contradiction ;
they keep resolving it to their own satisfaction, and as often as
they resolve it, it crops up again.
Again, in bourgeois science, discoveries are always being
interpreted-with the help of philosophers-in terms of the
bourgeois preconceptions. \Ve can sec this happening today,
for example, in the development of physics, where the dis­
coveries of quantum physics are interpreted as meaning that
events are unpredictable and their real nature unknowable.
This is simply an application in physical science of bourgeois
ideological preconceptions generated by the general crisis of
capitalism. On the other hand, certain preconceptions, at least
in their old forms, have had to be given up and replaced by
others, because of their contradiction with advancing know­
ledge of nature. This has happened, for example, with religious
doctrines, which have often been modified in the course of
the struggle to reconcile religion with science-as when the
theologians eventually ditched both Adam and Eve as a con·
cession to the theory of evolution.
Considering such examples, we can see that the opposition
and interpenetration of scientific and illusory elements in
ideology cannot be conceived so simply, as if ideas about one
thing were scientific while ideas about some other thing were
78
illusory. The fact is rather that scientific and illusory elements
oppose each other and interpenetrate in the ideas formed about
one and the same thing.
Thus bourgeois ideology, for example, is a contradictory
compound of truthful and illusory elements, with the latter
always persisting and maintaining themselves. It might be said
that the scientific element is stronger in the bourgeois views
about natural processes, while the illusory element is stronger
in the bourgeois views about social processes. But both elements
enter into all parts and all fields of bourgeois ideology, and the
illusory element is the most characteristic feature of the ideology.
What stamps bourgeois ideology as peculiarly bourgeoi3 is the
character of its illusions.
The same may be said of other ideologies of the past. At
the same time, we may consistently claim, and do claim, that
Socialist or Marxist ideology is primarily a scientific ideology,
and in this respect distinguishes i tself from every other ideology
without exception. This is because the struggle to end capital­
ism and, with it, all exploitation of man by man, which this
ideology serves, does demand above all a true apprehension of
reality and opposes itsel i to all the illusions of societies based on
exploitation.
79
r
I
Chapter Seven
I D E O L O G I C AL
I L L U S I ONS
Ideological Reflection of Production Relations
I
N this chapter we shall consider the development of ideo­
logical preconceptions or illusions, and will then turn, in the
next two chap ters, to the development of scientific ideas.
There are five main, characteristic features of the develop·
ment of ideological illusions in class-divided society, which
can be traced in every ideology up to and including bourgeois
ideology.
( 1) The first feature of ideological illusions is that they
always arise as reflections of particular, historically constituted
relations of production. Their source is the production relations
of society.
In the development of ideological illusions, it seems as if
abstract ideas, general theories, were being spun out of people's
heads-developed and controlled, to all appearances, simply
by the thinking process itself. Yet how did such ideas come
into people's heads ? What is their source ? Unless we are to
believe that ideas are formed spontaneously in the mind, or
that we are born already equipped with "innate ideas", then
we must suppose that a source in objective reality outside the
mind can be found for all our ideas, including the most abstract
and illusory-a source from which they are derived and of
which they are the reflection.
Consciousness is never anything but a reflection of material
existence. First there is matter, objective being, and then,
secondarily, there is consciousness, the reflection of matter.
The mind has no inner sources of its own, from which ideas can
be derived. Ev er y idea, every element of ideology, is derived
80
from and reflects some objective reality, some real aspect of
the material world.
The source of the illusions in ideology is always the real
economic structure of society. As men live, so do they think.
Corresponding to the relations they enter into in producing
the means of life, they produce social ideas and social theories.
Thus, for example, it is the real relations of landowners and
serfs established in the feudal model of production that are
reflected in the feudal ideas of landownership, and in feudal
ideology in general. Similarly, it is the capitalist relationships
which are reflected in capitalist ideology. And it was the far
simpler relationships within the tribe, the solidarity of the indi­
vidual with the tribe, which were reflected in the "primitive"
ideology of primitive communism.
Thus as society develops, the ideas which reflect the property
relations of society become el aborated in the form of systems
and theories concerning politics, social rights and obligations,
law, and so on. All such ideology has its source in the social
relations of production, and constitutes, in the last analysis,
nothing but an ideological reflection of those relations.
The same is true of moral ideas. If we have ideas of absolute
standards of good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice,
these ideas are reflections not of any objective property of
persons or actions but of the social relations into which people
have entered and within which their personal activity takes
place. No wonder, therefore, that moral j udgements change
with fundamental changes in social relations ; and that there
is only one objective standard for saying that one morality is
higher than another, namely, that it reflects and serves a
higher social system.
And the same is true of the ideology of the supernatural, of
religious ideology. The supernatural world which men conjure
up for themselves in their ideas is never, in the last analysis,
anything other than a reflection of the real world of society, of
the social relations within which men live their earthly lives.
The world of the supernatural always serves as the guardian
of the basic fabric of society. The tribal religion stands guard
over the tribe and protects tribal rela tions, just as the ideas
81
of Christianity today have been so adapted that heaven seems
to stand guard over the bourgeois order of society. The super­
natural world which guards and justifies the social order is
created in the image of that social order.
These are examples of the way in which various forms of
ideological illusions are developed in terms of abstract ideas
whose source lies in the development of social relations, more
precisely, of the relations of production. The o�jective reality
which is reflected in such ideas is never anything else than the
existing complex of social relations which spring from the
production of the material means of life.
The Spontaneous Character of Ideological Illusion
(2) The second feature of ideological illusions is that,
although their source lies in the complex of real social relations,
they are neither consciously derived from that source nor are
they put forward as an analysis of existing social relations.
The ideas which people employ may reflect their social
relations, but their ideological illusions are not created by
their consciously reflecting on their own social relations and
working out for themselves, in a scientific manner, an accurate
and systematic account of the social structure which they find
in existence.
The ideas of political economy, for example, as set forth in
such a book as Marx's Capital, are derived from a conscious,
methodical investigation of actually existing relations of pro­
duction. For that reason they are not illusory but scientific in
character. Ideological illusion, on the other hand, arises as an
unconscious, unintended reflection of an existing social
structure, expressed in general ideas about the world. It has
an unconscious, spontaneous character. That is why, if we
want to discover the most essential features of some illusory
ideology, we shall not discover them in the reasoned forms in
which men have presented their ideas, but rather in the
unreasoned assumptions, the preconceptions which they take
for granted, which underly their reasoning.
For example, in the ideology of the medieval Catholic
Church, the whole world, heaven and earth, was regarded as
82
a hierarchy in which the lower members were necessarily
subordinate to the higher. In the production of this ideology
there was no intention of giving an account of the feudal order ;
the conscious intention was to give an account of the necessary
order of the whole world, and this was consciously worked out
as a logical system. But yet the ideology was in fact a reflection
of the existing feudal social relations, which were thus repro­
duced in men's ideas by a spontaneous, unin tended, uncon­
scious process. The general ideas employed were a reflection
of actual social relations, but they were not consciously
produced as such a reflection, but arose unconsciously and
spontaneously in men's minds. These ideas then became fixed
as preconceptions which were used for the purpose of inter­
preting and working out the theory of everything which people
were interested in, whether in nature or societ)' or the imaginary
realm of heaven.
The spontaneous, unconscious character of the ideological
reflection of relations of production is due to the spontaneous,
unconscious character of those relations of production
themselves.
l\1en's relations of production, wrote Marx, are "indispens­
able and independent of their will". This is the key to under­
standing the nature of the illusory ideological reflection of
those relations in abstract ideas about the world and society.
The given relations of production are not deliberately insti­
tuted, but they are at the same time, at the given stage of
social development, indispensable. And because people never
decided to institute them but at the same time cannot get on
without them, they are not conscious of them as transitory
social relations which have been instituted at a definite time,
in definite circumstances, to answer definite but only temporary
historical needs of society. Rather do they appear as part of
the necessary order of things. The characteristic features of
men's social relations and relationships with nature, which are
in fact the historically determined result of a definite mode of
production, are reflected in abstract ideas in the form of
preconceptions and illusions about the nature of man and
society, as ideas about God and divine providence, about
83
right and justice, about the eternal and necessary charac­
teristics of all being, the ultimate nature of reality, and so on.
The Illusion of Pure Thought
( 3) The third feature of ideological illusions is that, just
because their spontaneous character precludes people's being
aware of their true source, they seem to themselves to have
produced them by a free process of thought, but a pure and
unfettered operation of the mind.
"Ideology1 is a process accomplished by the so-called
thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness,"
wrote Engels in a letter to Mehri ng, July 14, 1 8 9 3. "The real
motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise
it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines
false or apparent motives. Because it is a process of thought,
he derives both its form and its content from pure thought,
either his own or that of his predecessors. He works with mere
thought material which he accepts without examination as
the product of thought, and he does not investigate further
for a more remote process independent of thought."
And again, Engels wrote that ideology-the working out of
ideological illusions-is "occupation with thoughts as with
independent entities, developing independently and subject
only to their own laws. That the material life conditi? ns of
the persons inside whose heads this thought process goes on in
the last resort determine the course of this process, remains of
necessity unknown to those persons, for otherwise there would
be an end of all ideology." (Ludwig Feuerbach, chapter 4 .)
i Marx a n d Engels often used t h e term "ideology" t o refer exclu�ively
to the process of ideological illusion, thus employing it in a restricted sense.
When the term is used i n this restricted sense, scientific modes of thought
are by definition excluded from the ideological process. But the term
"ideology" is more often used in a wider sense, so that on� may speak, for
example, of "scientific socialist ideology", and characterise Marxism as
such an ideology. In this book I have employed the term t h rough out in the
wider sense, so that the word "ideology" is used to denote the typical
outlook or theory of a period or of a class, in which both illusory and
truthful or scientific elements may enter, and which, with the rise of the
revolutionary working class movement and of socialism, becomes primarily
scientific and dispenses with the il lusory modes of thought of previous
ideologies.
ideological Inversion
( 4) The fourth feature of ideological illusions is that a
process of im·ersion takes place in them, by which real social
relations are represented as the realisation of abstract ideas.
Irt the process of ideological illusion, products of abstract
thought are treated as though they were independent of the
material social relations which they in fact reflect. And so it
follows that reality is turned upside down in this process. The
source of abstract ideas is taken to be the mind, rather than
the material reality of social relations. And so the ultimate
ground for the existence of those relations themselves is
conceived as being the abstractions of the mind.
According to this inverted way of looking at things, men
create their social relationships in obedience to their abstract
ideas, and not the other way round.
Take, for example, abstract conceptions of right and justice,
which constitute an important part of all ideology. Abstract
right and justice are represented as independent of actual
social relationships, and those relationships are represented as
reflecting and realising-perhaps imperfectly-an abstract
right and justice. According to this topsy-turvy way of looking
at things, the abstract ideas of right and justice seem to
determine the real relationships of men, whereas in fact it is
the real relationships of men that determine their ideas of right
and justice. And similarly, the social system seems to be
justified by how far it corresponds to abstract ideas of right
and justice, whereas in fact ideas of right and j ustice are
justified hy how far they serve the material progress of society.
"Economic, political and other reflections are just like
those in the human eye," wrote Engels. "They pass through
a condensing lens and therefore appear upside down, standing
on their heads. Only the nervous system which would put
them on their feet again for representation is lacking
This inversion . . . forms what we call ideological conception."
(Letter to C. Schmidt, October 27, 1 890.)
And Marx and Engels further wrote :
"If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear
upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises
85
.
•
.
.
j ust as much from their historical life process as the inversion
of objects on the retina does from their physical life process."
( The German Ideology, Part I, chapter 1 . )
As a result of this ideological inversion, it follows that in
every epoch people have shared the illusion that their insti­
tutions and public activities are the expression of their abstract
ideas-of their religion, philosophy, political principles, and
so on. Thus the slave owners of ancient Rome thought of
themselves as actuated by republican principles, just as
modern capitalists thought of themselves (and still try to get
others to think of them) as actuated by democratic principles.
The wars of the Middle Ages were fought avowedly for
religious principles, just as the wars of today are fought
avowedly for n:-ttional or political principles.
According to this way of looking at things, wrote Marx,
"each principle has had its own century in which to manifest
itself. The principle of authority, for example, had the eleventh
century, just as the principle of individualism had the
eighteenth century
it was the century that belonged to the
principle, and not the principle to the century. In other
words, it was the principle that made the history, and not the
history that made the principle." ( The Pot•erty of Philosophy,
chapter' 2, section 1 , 5th observation.)
Every epoch, then, produces its characteristic illusions,
which are expressed in its dominant ideology-illusions as to
the real grounds and motive forces of its institutions and
activities.
"For instance," wrote Marx and Engels, " . . . an epoch
imagines itself to be actuated by purely political or religious
motives, although religion and politics are only forms of its
true motives . . . . " It is this which consti tutes "the illusion of
that epoch" . In this illusion, "the idea, the conception of these
conditioned men about their real practice is transformed into
the sole determining active force which controls and deter­
mines their practice." ( The German Ideology, Part I, chapter 1 . )
In ideological illusion, the products of the mind are repre­
sented as the dominating, compelling influence in human
affairs. And so it also happens that these products of the
86
•
.
.
mind, which are mere distorted fantasms of real conditions of
existence, come to be endowed in men's imaginations with a
real existence of their own. In this way are created what Marx
called " the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In
that world the productions of the human brain appear as
independent beings endowed with life, and entering into rela­
tion both with one another and the human race." (Capital,
Volume I, chapter 1 , section 4 .)
And so, while men imagine their whole social life and
institutions to be based on and motivated by their ideology,
at the same time this ideology conjures up a fantastic world of
powers and forces superior to and independent of both man
and nature, to which men feel themselves subject, on which
their destinies seem to depend and whose aid they seek to
enlist for their enterprises.
The "religious world", as Marx said in Capital (Volume I,
chapter I , section 4 ) , is never anything "but the reflection of
the real world".
In the most primitive social organisations men are relatively
helpless in the face of natural forces ; they are banded together
to get a living, and would be doomed to destruction without
this elementary social cohesion and co-operation. This fact is
reflected in their minds in the i llusions of magic. Men seem to
possess a special power and virtue as members of their tribe or
clan, and this virtue takes the form, in their imagination, of a
spe�ial m<.)cal force. All sorts of procedures are invented for
exerting it-and later, with division of labour, it comes to be
regarded as the possession and concern of certain individuals
only, and not of the whole people. At the same time, natural
objects and natural forces are assumed to be animated, and are
later personified ; so that the whole intercourse of man with
man, and of man with nature, is represented as depending on
the activity of unseen, mysterious powers.
The development and ramification of religious ideas has
kept pace with and reflected the development of men's social
life.
"The primitive religious notions, which in the main are
common to each group of kindred peoples," wrote Engels,
87
·
" devel o p, a ft er th e sepa ra t io n of the group, in a manner
peculiar to each people, a c c ording to the living condi tions
falling to th eir lot." (Ludwig Fcuerbach, c hap t er 4. )
As with all i deol o gy, re ligi on is not created anew in each
new ph ase of social developme n t . On the con trary, every
i deol ogy in i ts devel o pme n t makes use of traditional materials
which are taken over from p r evious ideol ogy, and i n co r po ra t es
in itself ma terials borrowed from other i d eologies. It is the
same in religi on ; and so, for example, we can still re c ogn i se
even i n t h e reli gi ous doctrines and p ra cti c es of Protestant
C hris tiani ty t oday elements which h ave been carr i e d over
from p ri m it ive tribal magic, overlaid and transformed as the y
may be w i t h new meani ngs.
"Religion, once formed," Engels continued, "always con­
tains t radit i o n al ma t eri al, j ust as in all i deol ogi cal domains
tradition is a great conservative force. But the transformations
which this material undergo es spring from class relations­
that i s to sa y, out of the economic relations of the persons who
execute th ese transforma t ions. "
This characteristic of all i deological illusion-that, because
it is o c cupa tio n with thoughts as with ind epe n dent enti t i es, it
continually develops i deas out of the m aterial of other id eas­
c ffe c tively di sgu i ses the fact that every i deology, and every
element of ideology, is b u t a r e fl e c t i o n of ma t erial social
existence, and makes i t appear as though it were really what
i t purports to he, an indep e nden t march of ideas.
The nature of ideology is never obvio u s on the su rface, but
comes to l i ght only as a r es u l t o f Marx 's profou n d scientific
discovery, that " the mode of production of material li fe
conditions the soci al , poli t ica l and i ntellectual life process in
general. " (Critique of Political Economy, Preface. )
So long as men are not t he masters of t h eir own so ci a l
o rg ani s a t i o n , so long are their re a l social relations reflec te d
in i deolog i ca l inversi uns which, far from rendering their real
social relations in t elli g i b le, m ysti fy them and co n ceal their real
ch ara c ter, together with the real s pri ngs and laws of h um an
social action, behind a veil of reli gious, pol itical , legal, artistic
and phil osop h i cal illusions.
88
Ideology and Class /ntmst
( 5 ) The fifth feature of ideological illusions is that, in society
divided into classes, they constitute a class-motivated system
of deception, a mode of disguising the real social relations in
the interests of a definite class.
Illusion always reflects the real social relations in such a way
as to disguise them.
For example, the religious ideology of the Middle Ages,
with its conception of a heavenly hierarchy which reflected
the feudal order, meant that the exploitation of the serf by
the lord was disguised as a subordination of the serf to his
natural superiors under the rule of God. And similarly, the
naked fact that the feudal lord appropriated the produce of
the serf's labour was disguised by the abstract feudal ideas of
ownership, dues, rights and obligations.
Once again, the naked fact that the capitalist appropriates
the values produced by the workers' unpaid labour is disguised
by the abstract capitalist ideas of ownership, contract and
equality of righ ts. This disguise is completed by capitalist
forms of religion. That is why, though bourgeois ideology has
often taken non-religious or anti-religious forms, it always
leaves a loophole for religion and continually comes back to
it, while in periods of crisis, when the system is seriously
endangered, religious ideology is always brought to the fore
an<l takes the offensive.
"For a society based upon the production of commodities,"
wrote Marx, "in which the producers in general enter into
social relations with one another by treating their products as
commodities and values, whereby they reduce their individual
private labour to the standard of homogeneous human labour
-for such a society, Christianity, with its cultus of abstract
man, more especially in its bourgeois developments, Protes­
tantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion."
(Capital, Volume I, chapter 1 , section 4 .)
The whole of bourgeois ideology, from its religion to its
political economy, disguises the fact of capitalist exploita­
tion.
The disgui se and deception inherent in all ideological
89
illusion is always socially motivated. In other words, it serves
definite social ends, definite social interests.
In primitive societies, before the birth of classes, it serves
to strengthen and consolidate the bonds of solidarity between
members of the tribe, on which their survival depends. An d
i n conditions when people are almost totally ignorant of the
natural forces which environ them, magical ideas make them
feel that nevertheless they can control these forces. Primitive
ideology is thus motivated by the self-preservation of the whole
tribe, by the interest of the whole people to preserve their
social organisation and to feel strong and secure in it.
'When society spli ts into antagonistic classes, and when,
consequently, history becomes the history of class struggles,
then class interest becomes the main motivation of ideology.
Every ideology becomes the ideology of a class, expressing, in
however roundabout a way, the conditions of existence of a
definite class and serving that class in its struggle against other
classes. The dominant ideology in any period is that of the
ruling class. And when this ideology is challenged, that is but
the expression of the fact that the existing state of class
relations is being challenged by another class.
The disguise and deception of class ideology, motivated as
it is by class interest, is not to be interpreted, however, as
primarily a deliberate, comcious deception.
To suppose that the thinking representatives of a class
deliberately invent misleading ideas with the conscious purpose
of disguising from the people what they know to be the real
character of the social relations is to suppose that these thinkers
do in fact know what is the real character of the social relations.
But the very essence of ideological illusion is that it is a false
consciousness of social relations. The mystifying ideological
conception of these relations takes the place of a correct,
scientific conception. This false consciousness arises, as we
have seen, not by a deliberate process but rather by a spon­
taneous, unconscious process. It is not deliberate falsehood
but-illusion. If this is deception, it is also self-deception.
Those who would interpret ideological illusions as mere
deliberate deceptions, therefore, mistake the very nature of
go
what Marx and Engels called "false consciou�nes:." . For they
suppose that the class whose interests are served by the ideology
possesses in fact a true consciousness of the basis of i ts exist­
ence-which is just what no exploiting class possesses or ever
can possess. The explanation of ideologies as products cf �vell­
laid plans to deceive the people in the in terests of a class :.:. �n
absurd vulgarisation of Marxism. That is not how ideologies
arise.
Of course, spokesmen and ideologists of ruling classes do
constantly engage in conscious, deliberate deception of the
people. But behind the system of deliberate deception lies
always a system of self-deception.
As a case in point we may take the example of Plato, who
was a representative of extreme ideological reaction in ancient
Greece. I n his Republic he advocated that, to keep the people
down, the rulers should propagate what he called "a noble
lie" : although they knew very well i t was not true, they should
proclaim that rulers and ruled were men of two different kinds,
the rulers being "golden" men and the rest being men of
mere "brass and iron". At the same time, Plato maintained
that aristocracy was the best system of society and that any
departure from it meant anarchy and degeneration. This,
however, he undoubtedly believed. It was one of the illusions
of his class, and constituted the very basis of his outlook. From
the point of view of the aristocratic slave-owners' ideology,
which Plato expounded and which he did much to shape, i t
was quite i n order t o tell the people lies, a n d s u c h lies were
"noble".
Such has been the situation with all ruli ng class i deologies.
Genuine false consciousness becomes involved in deliberate
deception, so that the two become closely in tertwined and
even, at times, indistinguishable. This is especially the case
in capitalist society, in which all things, i ncluding ideas, are
bought and sold. Those who have ideas to sell come to regard
them as commodities to be exchanged for cash, not as truths
to be believed.
The class-motivated character of particular ideologies has
long been recognised. When a new class is rising to power,
91
a n d c on se q u ently po si n g a new ideology against that of the
old ruling class, it generally re cog ni ses that the old ideology
expresses th e interests of its political opponents. It attacks
this i deol o gy , therefore, as a system of falsehoods m otiva te d
by class interest. I t advances its own ideology, on the other
hand, as a system of truth, corr es pon di n g to the profounder
needs of the whole of s oc i ety .
"Each new class which p uts itself in the place of the one
ruling before i t," wrote Marx and Engels, "is compelled,
merely in order to carry through its a i m, to represent its interest
as the common interest of all the members of society, put in
an i deal form ; it will give its ideas the form of u ni ve rsal i t y, and
represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The
class mak i n g a re vol uti on appears from th e very start, merely
because it is opp ose d t o a class, not as a class, but as th e repre­
sentative of the whole of s oc i ety. " ( The German Ideology, Part I,
chapter i . )
A newly formed ideology, therefore, generally starts with a
profound impulse t o d evel op men t , as a universal system of
ideas opening up ne\v horizons, corresponding to de eply fel t
s oci a l n ee d s, as if it were based not o n the i n t er e s ts of a class
but on the a s pi r a t i on s of a whole people. In the course of time,
however, as the n ew rul in g a n :! ex pl oi ti ng class becomes
entangled in its own con trad i c t ion s, its i de ology loses its
revol u ti on a ry elan and becomes cons e rva t ive ; it begins to
d e c ay and disintegra te ; u n t i l finally it stands revealed in its
turn as a system of class-motivatd deceptions, while its
exponents d egene ra te from ori ginal thinkers i1rto rnC're hired
propagan di s t s of the ruli ng class.
Chapter Eight
SCIENCE
LONG
The Ideas of the Production Process
with the development of the illusory, inverted
reflection in consciousness of the relations of production
goes the development of men's true ideas of the material
objects which environ them and with which they are concerned
in the process of production, of the production process itself
and of their own activities and social relations.
For the development of production, and of the social inter­
course which arises from production, demands and gives rise
to the working out of true ideas about things and their inter­
connections and motions, and about various human activities
and relations. Unless people do evolve such true ideas, they
cannot successfully carry on production or manage their social
affairs. And the more various and powerful their forces of
production, and the more various and complex their social
activities, the more do they need to find out about nature and
about themselves in order to bring their various prqjects to a
successful conclusion.
In the development of ideology, as Marx and Engels pointed
out, "consciousness can really flatter itself that it is something
othet than consciousness of existing practice". But at the same
time as consciousness thus abstracts i tself from existing practice,
the consciousness of existing practice also develops as practice
develops. That very development of production, of division of
labour, and of relations of production, which leads to illusory
flights of inverted ideology, also leads to a growth of men's
true ideas about their real conditions of life.
Such true ideas do not arise of themselves. They have to
be laboriously formed, worked out and tested in practice. They
A
93
represent so many discoveries made by people in the course of
their social practice.
The first source of peopl e's discoveries is the practice of
social production.
We have already seen that it is a characteristic of the social
process of production that in it men have an idea of what they
aim to produce. There is and can be no production, in the
human sense, not even the most primitive kinds of food­
gathering and hunting, without this consciousness. And so in
producing, men are also necessarily forming their ideas of the
objects with which they come into relation, of the materials
they use and the techniques which they employ, and making
discoveries about the properties of those objects and materials
and about what can be done with them.
"The elementary factors of the labour process," wrote
Marx (Capital, Volume I, chapter 7, section 1 ) , "are ( 1 ) the
personal activity of man, i.e., work itself; (2) the subject of
work ; and ( 3 ) its instruments." And none of these factors can
be set in motion without corresponding ideas and discoveries.
With development of production and division of labour, the
forms of work become more varied, its subject extends and its
instruments are improved. And this means that men's ideas are
correspondingly enlarged and that they make new discoveries.
Primitive man, for example, who expressed his social rela­
tions and relationships with nature in a magical ideology, had
already very precise and accurate ideas of the different species
of animals which he hunted, and of their various habits and
properties-as is shown, among other things, by the records he
made of his knowledge in cave paintings. With the develop­
ment of agriculture and handicrafts new discoveries were made
and men's ideas of natural objects and their properties, and of
the principles involved in the various production processes,
were greatly enlarged. And now, in modern capitalist society,
the very samP. institutes and universities which churn out all
manner of bourgeois religious, political and philosophical illu­
sions, are the repositories ofa vast and growing store of accurate
and systematic knowledge of nature and of the principles by
the application of which man advances his mastery of nature.
9 4-
All this is the fruit of thousands of years of human endeavour
and, in particular, of the mighty advances in production
achieved in the capitalist era.
Thus if men's illusions have their ultimate source in the
rel ations of production, men also continually make discoveries
which arise in the last analysis from the production process
itself. In these discoveries there is a development of abstract
ideas which reflect various features and properties of things and
of the production process without ideological preconception,
inversion or disguise.
Such ideas of nature and of technological processes consti­
tute, in fact, an important aspect of the productive forces
themselves. The forces of production include people, with
their production experience and skill. People's production
experience and skill is recorded, generalised and systematised
in their ideas ; and, equipped with these ideas, they utilise the
instruments of production and also improve them . Furth er,
the growth of knowledge of the production process, of its
subjects and instruments, of the principles of technology and
of nature generally, is not only an essential condition for the
continuance of production at a given level ; under suitable
conditions it contributes to new advances of production, and
so may become one of the factors making eventually necessary
revolutionary changes in the relations of production to bring
them into correspondence with new forces of production.
The Rise of Na tura l Sciences
The natural sciences spring from the ideas, or the knowledge,
accumulated in the prod uction process.
"From the very beginning," Engels wrote in Dialectics of
Nature, "the origin and development of the sciences has been
determined by production."
Throughout antiquity, he observed , scientific in\'estigation
proper remained restricted to astronomy, mathematics and
mechanics. For "astronomy . . . if only on accoun t of the
seasons, was absolutely indispensable for pastoral and agricul­
tural peoples. Astronomy can only develop with the aid of
mathematics. Hence this also had to be tackled. Further, at a
95
certain stage of agriculture and in certain regions (raising of
water for irrigation in Egypt), and especially with the origin
of towns, big building operations and the development of
handicrafts-mechanics. This was soon needed also for navi­
gation and war. Moreover, it requires the aid of mathematics
and so promotes the latter's development." Later, with the
great new developments of the forces of production which led
to and then took place within the capitalist system, new
sciences arose one after the other-physics, chemistry, the
biological sciences, geology. "If . . . the sciences suddenly arose
anew with undreamed-of force, developing at a miraculous
rate, once again we owe this miracle to-production."
If the development of the sciences is determined by produc­
tion, this also accounts for the uneven rate in history of the
development of the sciences and for the often one-sided
character of that development. The varying character of
production and of the emphasis placed on different production
processes accounts for it. Thus chemistry, for example, was
never far developed until modern times, though mechanics
and certain parts of the biological sciences had a considerable
development. Again, the agricultural sciences are relatively
neglected under modern monopoly capitalism, while all the
sciences connected with war production arc energetically
fostered.
Sciences as Specialised Undertakings Distinct from Production
Sciences are essentially specialised undertakings, with their
own specialist techniques and theories. The rise of sciences
occurs when, as a product of division of labour, there begins a
special investigation of the properties of various natural
objects and natural processes, distinct from production itself;
and when, consequently, there also occurs a special elabora­
tion, a generalisation and systematisation, of ideas in connec­
tion with such investigation.
Only under such conditions may we speak of sciences. Thus
we would hardly allow the title of "science" to the knowledge
possessed by primitive tribes, extensive and accurate as it is, of
the various kinds of animals and plants, or of the properties
96
of various materials, or of the succession of the seasons. Such
knowledge is raised to the level of scie11ce only when these
things are made the subjects of special investigation distinct
from actual production-in the first pl ace from hunting,
making tools, gardening and the like ; and when, conse­
quently, what is discovered about them is generalised and
systematised as a special body of knowledge.
We may distinguish three outstanding characteristics of
sciences, which progressively distinguish scientific theory from
the knowledge of natural objects and processes inherent in the
production process itself and constituting the producers' own
consciousness of their work, its subjects and instruments.
(I ) Sciences engage in systematic description and classification
of natural objects and processes. Such, for example, is the
charting of the heavenly bodies and their apparent move­
ments undertaken by the pioneers of astronomical science, like
the ancient Egyptians ; or the "natural histories" compiled by
early students of living nature, like Aristotle, whose zoological
works comprised a systematic description and classification of
most known (as well as some imaginary) kinds of animals, with
attempts at formulating laws correlating the various properties
of different animals.
(2) Basing themselves on such description and classification
of natural objects and their motions, sciences proceed by
abstraction to formulate the principles and laws manifested in
and governing the observed properties and motions of natural
objects. By such abstraction, for example, are derived such
concepts as mass, momentum, etc. , in mechanics ; or the
concepts of number and geometrical form in mathematics.
(3) Utilising such concepts, the sciences proceed by the
formulation of hypotheses. Such hypotheses seek to explain the
observed properties, interconnections and motions of the things
investigated, and so to predict their further properties, inter­
connections and motions ; they seek to provide a systematic
theory of the phenomena, and to enable men to understand
and make use of them.
Consequently, while science has its roots in production, and
is applied in production, at the same time it is developed as a '
97
specialised activity distinct from production.
It follows that those who develop it are frequently unaware
of, and may even deny, its connection with production. So far
as their own consciousness of their activities is concerned, they
may be carrying out their investigations out of curiosity, sheerly
for the sake of knowledge, from love of mankind and the desi re
to enlighten people, because they enjoy it, because they are
paid to do i t, because they wish to become famous, or because
they wish to do opponents a bad turn by proving them wrong.
Many different subjective motives may and do operate in
scientific work, and, of course, these motives may and do
influence the character and outcome of the work.
Further, once science is put on the track of certain discover­
ies, these often lead of themselves to others, and the process of
following up conclusions and generalising and systematising
the resulting ideas proceeds with a logic of its own, independent
of particular practical problems connected with production.
For this reason important scientific problems are often
elucidated in advance of practical needs and even long before
any practical application is possible. For example, scientific
conclusions about the existence of electromagnetic waves were
reached well in advance of any practical application in radio
techniques. Atomic fission was discovered many years before
any practical application of the release of atomic energy was
attempted. Thus scientific advance tends to acquire a momen­
tum of its own independent of practical application. What is
more, even when that application becomes technically possible,
it is often del ayed on account of political and economic
circumstances.
Sciences, as the theory of production, are thus from the
outset distinct from the practice of production, both in their
organisation and in the personal activity and consciousness of
their practitioners. At the same time, the character of the
sciences and their level do always depend on those of produc­
tion, their problems arise in the last analysis from production,
and their results are fed back into production. The develop­
ment of sciences is always dependent on the development of
production, and in turn sustains and pushes forward produc98
tion. The distinction of science from production is not a
disconnection, but a very close connection. And in the event
that this underlying connection ever becomes severed, the
sciences themselves always begin to stagnate and then to
decay. In general, the times when a new impetus is given to
science are times when new techniques of production are being
developed. Those who then pioneer the new paths in science
are usually closely associated in their practical interests with
the new productive processes. Then follows a process of the
scientific elaboration and development of the new ideas and
discoveries. But this process cannot be long sustained if i t fails
to achieve technical application and lacks the stimulus of
problems arising from that application.
Science and Classes
What has been said shows that the rise of sciences is a product
of division of labour. Sciences are developed as a product of
mental as distinct from physical labour-as a special field of
theoretical activity separated from the labour of production.
It follows from this that the development of the sciences is
closely bound up with that of classes. At different time� differ­
ent classes have taken a hand in the development of the sciences
and have, in consequence, influenced that development to suit
their class requirements, and imposed on the sciences certain
features of their class ideology.
From the division of labour arose private property and
exploiting classes, and so the division between the mass of
producers, wholly engaged in productive toil, and the privi­
leged and leisured minority who took over the general
management and direction of society. The development of
sciences, as a branch of mental labour, was dependent upon
the existence of such a minority, freed from the physical labour
of production and able to undertake such mental labour.
Thus the class which, i n any particular period, has taken
over the general management and diPection of society, and
therefore of the state, religion and so on, also takes charge of
the sciences and exercises a controlling influence over their
development.
99
Sciences develop essentially as part of the means which are
required for the general direction and management of social
affairs, as well as of particular undertakings. Hence the sciences
develop as means or instruments in the hands of various
classes, serving their requirements in the way of (a) carrying
on and expanding production, and (b) managing .and control­
ling social affairs genei:ally. These classes promote and foster
the development of sciences in so far as their interests require
that they find things out, as distinct from merely remaining
in ignorance or inventing false theories.
Thus the expansion of science, and also the limits to that
expansion, are governed by the interests arising from the con­
ditions of existence of particular classes from time to time.
In slave society and in feudal society, for example, the
conditions of existence of the ruling classes, which were bound
up with the existence of a comparatively low level of develop­
ment of both agriculture and industry, dictated only a most
limited interest in the development of sciences. But once the
bourgeoisie arose, its interests demanded an enormous exten­
sion of scientific work, connected primarily with the develop­
ment of.manufactures and industries, but also, in the conditions
of its revolutionary struggle, with man and his social relations.
Modern science is the creation of the bourgeoisie, one of the
most typical products of bourgeois society, the means for
understanding and controlling the processes of nature and
society created under the conditions of the development of
capitalism.
Class Ideology in Science
The fact that a particular class takes the leading part in the
general development of science also places definite conditions
and limits upon the development of the ideas of science.
On the basis of the material conditions of existence of a
class, preconceptions are formed which determine the charac­
ter of the class ideology. These preconceptions are used and
applied, in one way or another, by the intellectual representa­
tives of the class in every sphere of their ideological activity.
And so they are used and applied in scientific work, penetrate
1 00
into and impose themselves upon the theory of the sciences,
and in that way influence and colour the entire development
of the sciences in each particular period.
I n slave society, for example, the idea was developed, and
it was more fully worked out in feudal society, that everything
which existed constituted a hierarchy, stretching down from
God, through the grades of inferior spiri tual beings, to the
grades of men, animals, plants and minerals. Everything
existed for a purpose, corresponding to its place in the system,
and this was what determined its essential properties as well as
its movements and changes. This type of conception dominated
the sciences. Every theory concerning man or nature had to
be formulated in terms of it and made to fit in with it.
For example, it was considered that the heavens beyond the
circle of the moon were of a superior nature, belonged to a
superior grade of being, to the earth beneath. Hence the
heavenly movements (which were supposed to be necessarily
circular, because such movements were supposed to be the
most perfect) were considered to be movements obeying
different laws from earthly ones. Earthly bodies naturally
tended to fall towards the centre, which accounted for gravita­
tion as observed on the earth ; but this did not apply in the
heavens. Such ideas were expressed in the Ptolemaic concep­
tion of the base earth at the centre of the universe, with the
sun and stars circling beyond it. Copernicus, putting the sun
at the centre and making the earth one of the planets, effected
a decisive break with this type of conception, and paved the
way for the Newtonian conception of universal gravi tation and
the laws of motion, which subsumed the movements of all the
bodies in the universe under one universal scheme of mechani­
cal causality.
Bourgeois ideology in general and bourgeois science in
particular attacked and in the end largely got rid of the old,
traditional conceptions. This attack arose from and developed
on the basis of the growth of the bourgeois social relations.
\Vhat took the place of the old conceptions were new and
typically bourgeois conceptions-conceptions of the basic
qualitative identity of al l material beings, and of mechanical
101
causality. At the same time, apart from its most radical
representatives, the bourgeoisie by no means threw over the
conceptions of God and of spirit. But in place of the single
graded hierarchy of being, from the basest sort of material
being at the bottom to the highest sort of spiritual being (or
God) at the top, there was introduced the division of the
universe into two totally different spheres-material being
subject to fixed, deterministic laws on the one hand, and God
and the spiritual world on the other hand.
In one way or another such bourgeois conceptions have
entered into the whole theoretical fabric of modern science, as
slave and feudal conceptions did into that of ancient and
medieval science. But there is this difference-that whereas
the old conceptions were hostile to the exploration of nature
by experimental methods, the new conceptions were favour­
able to it and demanded it.
Discovery and Preconception
Because of this class ideological influence in scientific theory, a
distinction is always arising in the development of the sciences
between the discoveries which science makes and the precon­
ceptions which science takes over and uses.
A discovery is made when, as a result of investigations,
something becomes known about the kinds of things which
exist, their properties, interconnections and laws. But dis­
coveries must always be expressed in propositions formulated
with the aid of definite concepts, and such propositions are
always made to form part of a general theory. Considering,
therefore, the sum total of the ideas and theories of the
sciences at any time, we find that, in one aspect, they consist
of the formulation of actual discoveries, and in another aspect,
they consist of the general preconceptions in terms of which
the discoveries are formulated and knitted together into a
general theory.
This distinction between discovery and preconception,
which is always present in science, often gives rise to a contra­
diction between discovery and preconception. And this
contradiction is continually at work in the development of
1 02
the sciences.
This contradiction is in essence a contradiction between
content and form in science-a contradiction between the
actual content of the discoveries of science and the theoretical
forms in which they are expressed and generalised. It can
work out in either of two ways, a positive way or a negative
way. Positively, new discoveries help to shatter old preconcep­
tions and to lead to new ways of understanding things.
Negatively, the retention of old preconceptions hinders the
advance to new discoveries.
For example, at the dawn of modern natural science the
old preconceptions were hindering the advance to new
discoveries-as when the notion that heavenly motions were
completely different from earthly ones hindered the advance
of astronomy and mechanics. And then the new discoveries
in astronomy and mechanics helped to shatter the old concep­
tions and to lead the way to a new outlook.
Again, in modern bourgeois natural science a contradiction
has arisen between the discoveries of science and the tradi­
tional, bourgeois mechanistic-metaphysical method of inter­
preting them.
Thus Engels pointed out tha t the cumulative effect of the
discoveries of modern natural science is to show "that in the
last resort nature works dialectically and not metaphysically .
. . . But the naturalists who have learned to think dialectically
are few and far between, and this conflict of the results of
discovery with preconceived modes of thinking explains the
endless confusion now reigning in theoretical natural science."
(Socialism, Utopia11 and Scientific, chapter 3.)
On the one hand, this contradiction leads to "endless
confusion" in science, which holds up the advance of science.
In biology, for example, extremely rigid mechanistic ideas
about living processes were imposed and, when these created
difficulties, recourse was had to mystical ideas about life
forces, resul ting in a sterile controversy between "mechanism"
and "vitalism". Again, when modern discoveries in physics
upset the traditional scheme of mechanistic causality, it was
clai med that the whole idea of causality had broken down
1 03
and that "no picture" could be given of fundamental physical
processes. On the other hand, the accumulation of discoveries
has led to new ways of thinki ng, to the supplanting of bourgeois
ideology by di alectical ma terialism. Thus Lenin concluded
from his examination of new developments in physics :
" Modern physics in in travail, it is giving birth to dialectical
materialism. " (Afateriali.mz and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 5 ,
section 8.)
Social Science
So far we have discussed only the natural sciences. But there
is also social science.
The development of natural sciences, which carry out
investigations into the properties and laws of natural
phenomena, has ultimately been determined by production.
That of social science, on the other hand, which carries out
investigations into the properties and laws of social phenomena,
has been determined by the class struggle. Social science has
its roots in the experience of various classes gained in the
course of their class struggle.
Sciences always arise from some need . It is, in the last
analysis, the needs of production which call forth natural
sciences, and their investigations are carried out on behalf of
whatever class is directing production. In turn, the needs of
the general management and control of social affairs call
forth social science. And its investigations are carried out on
behalf of whatever class is either actually managing and
controlling social affairs or is struggling to secure such
management and control.
The investigation of social phenomen a has had considerable
development during slave, feudal and capitalist society. The
most painstaking investigations have been made into the
various different forms of socie ty and of government, and into
the social laws which any government must take cognisance
of, as well as the investigations of historians, which ha\•e
established the sequence of public events in the history of
various communities.
But up to the emergence of the modern working class, these
1 04
investigations have been carried out by representatives o f
exploiting classes. And so i t has been primarily the lessons
and conclusions about man and society drawn by the exploit­
ing classes which have been incorporated into social science.
This has given social science a character profoundly different
from natural science. As developed by representatives of
exploiting classes, social science-which deals with men's
relations and interactions with one another-has been com­
pletely separated from natural science-which deals with
external nature and man's action on nature. And it has proved
impossible to establish the basis of a trustworthy science of
society in the way that the same classes have been able to do
in the case of external nature.
There are four principal features of social science which
have fundamentally distinguished it from natural science.
( I ) Class interests inhibit certain investigations and dis­
coveries in social science, in a way they do not in natural
science. The fact that social science has been developed by
exploiting classes as an aid to their class struggles sets impas­
sable limits on the possibilities of discovery by social science­
so long as it remains in the hands of those classes.
It is true, of course, that various discoveries about nature
have been resisted for a time by representatives of the ruling
classes, for their own ideological reasons. And in this respect
the path of the natural sciences has sometimes been anything
but smooth . Such was the case, for example, with Galileo, or
more recently Darwin, or more recently still Michurin. But
invariably, in the end, the facts themselves compel recognition,
the discoveries are assimilated and used, and the ideologies
adapt themselves to the new discoveries. But in the social field,
on the other hand, resistance is much stronger. An exploiting
class will not recognise facts and laws about society if this
would fatally prejudice its class intt:rests. It will not recognise
facts which would expose the real nature of its own system of
exploitation, and laws which would make clear the inevitable
downfall of that system.
(2) While exploiting classes have developed the natural
sciences as instruments of men's collective mastery over
1 05
nature, they have not developed social science correspondingly
as an instrument of men's collective mastery over their own
social organisation. The exploiting classes have developed
social sciences only as an instrument to help them secure and
maintain their own class rule. Many investigations about
society have been undertaken, from which theoretical and
practical conclusions have been drawn. But in contrast to the
investigations and conclusions of the natural sciences, these
have never enabled people to secure such control over the
results of their actions that they could direct and plan their
co-operative efforts to the realisation of definite ends.
Exploiting classes have been interested in developing instru­
ments of production which have been the means for people's
establishing and increasing their mastery over nature. And so,
under the patronage of these classes, the natural sciences have
more and more helped to realise man's mastery over nature.
But at the same time, the development of private property and
exploitation has made people subject to effects of their own
social relations which lie beyond their conscious social control.
And this must be so for as long as exploitation continues to
exist. Hence the very same historical process which creates
for the exploiting classes the possibility of developing a natural
science which helps to realise man's mastery over nature,
withholds from them the possibility of developing a social
science which helps to realise man's mastery over his own
social organisation.
( 3 ) While exploiting classes have been able to develop
further and further the scientific investigation not only of the
surface phenomena of nature but of the underlying causes and
laws of these phenomena, their social science is never able to
penetrate to the basic causes and laws of the movement of
society.
The basic causes and laws of the movement of society lie in
the sphere of the production relations, of the property and
class relations. But it is impossible to carry through to the end
a scientific investigation in this sphere without finally exposing
the truth about the basis of the privileged position of the
exploiting classes, and the contradictory and transitory nature
1 06
of the system of exploitation, which· these classes are vitally
concerned to hide and disguise. Hence even when, during a
progressive phase, the social science of an exploiting class
begins to make a more profound analysis of the economic basis
of society (as with the British bourgeoisie in the initial phase
of industrial capitalism) , the class soon falls back from its own
achievement, and its social investigations revert to a super­
ficial descriptive level, replete with misleading ideas. The
sociologists of exploiting classes can in the end never rightly
classify, analyse and explain the phenomena investigated, and
constantly introduce illusory motives and false explanations
into their accounts of society.
(4) In the hands of the exploiting classes, social science has
remained far more profoundly under the influence of class
ideology than the natural sciences. I n the natural sciences,
class ideological preconceptions have often hindered but in
the end not prevented the sciences from discovering many of
the objective laws and essential interconnections of the
phenomena they were investigating. In social science, on the
other hand, the general theory of society has been primarily
determined by class ideological preconceptions.
Because class interests prohibit certain investigations and
discoveries ; because the classes in charge of social science
cannot develop it as a means towards man's mastery over his
own social organisation and so submit its conclusions to the
test of social practice ; because social science draws back from
investigating the basic causes and laws of the movement of
society-it follows that the general conceptions of society
employed in social science are not derived from scientific
investigation but have the character of false consciousness, of
class ideological illusion. Consequently, the investigations and
conclusions of social science have tended, in the hands of
representatives of exploiting classes, to develop primarily as
a mere elaboration of class ideological preconceptions-as a
classifying and interpreting of social facts in such a way as to
reinforce a given class's illusions about society, and to provide
arguments to support its political policies.
For all these reasons, therefore, social science in the hands
1 07
of representatives of exploiting classes has not attained, and
never could attain, the same scientific status as the natural
sciences. And it has constantly tended to degenerate into mere
ruling class apologetics.
The Social Functions of Science
We shall sum up this chapter with some conclusions about
the nature of science and the part it plays in social life, in
economic and cultural development. Then in the next chapter
we shall consider some of the general features of the historical
development of science, and the part it is destined to play in
the future, in the construction of socialist society.
The distinction between scientific and illusory modes of
consciousness is dependent on the different methods of forming
ideas about things-on the one hand, forming ideas on the
basis of practical interaction with things, developing them by
systematic investigation and testing them continually in
practice ; on the other hand, proceeding from ideological
preconceptions.
These two modes of consciousness are not mu tually exclus­
ive. They are opposites, but they interpenetrate. They are
opposite tendencies at work in the total development of social
consciousness, which intcrpenetrate at every stage, and which
together determine the actual formation of the ideas enter­
tained about nature and society, and about particular aspects
of nature and society. And this in turn gives rise to continual
contradictions in such ideas. As we have seen, the scientific
mode of consciousness has gradually become the predominant
influence in the formation of ideas about nature, while the
illusory mode of consciousness has remained the predominant
infl uence in the formation of ideas about society.
Scientific i nvestigation and discovery is bound up with social
practice, with the practice of production and with the practice
of the class struggle. In the last analysis, it always arises from
and is governed by the requirements of practice. And meeting
the requirements of practice, it makes an essential contribution
to practice.
Scientific investigation and discovery plays an indispensable
1 08
part in the development of the forces of production ; and the
higher the development of the forces of production the greater
and the more necessary is the part played by science in their
development. For example, science played no part in the forces
of production in the Stone Age. It began to play a part in the
development of agriculture, metalworking, public works. I t
plays a major part i n the modern forces o f production, since
modern technology would be impossible without science ;
more than that, it plays a leading part, since scientific research
pioneers the way of technological development and leads
directly to great revolutions in technology.
Contributing thus to the development of forces of produc­
tion, science becomes a revolutionising force in society. For it
is a principal factor in those advances of the forces of produc­
tion which bring them into conflict with existing relations of
production and thus render necessary a change in the whole
economic structure of sotiety. This is evident today in the
development of physical science, for example. Thus atomic
energy production is one of the factors which make the
replacement of capitalism by socialism urgently necessary, in
order that such production may be fruitfully developed in the
service of society.
At the same time, science plays a part in class struggle. The
natural sciences play such a part indirectly and as a secondary
function, social science directly and as a primary function.
The primary social function of natural science is to assist
production. From this follows its secondary function in the
class struggle. Definite advances in science and technology
serve the interests of definite classes, either in their stniggle for
power or in the consolidation of their regime when they are
in power. Thus, for example, the early advances of modern
science and technology served the rising bourgeoisie in two
ways-first, by enabling them to increase their wealth and so
strengthen their social position ; second, ideologically by help­
ing their struggle against the feudal ideology. And when the
bourgeoisie was established in power, science and technology
were powerful aids in consolidating the capitalist regime.
Today they still serve the regime of monopoly capitalism. At
109
the same time, they are also pressed into the service of the
working class and the cause of socialism, and developed in
that service-in the countries where socialism is being b uilt,
as a mainspring in socialist construction ; and everywhere as
part of the essential equipment of socialist ideology.
Various kinds of social investigation, on the other hand,
serve the class struggle directly, and the requirements of class
struggle provide the principal motivation of such investiga­
tions. And in the case of exploiting classes, this, as we have
seen, accounts for the fact that class ideological illusions play
a far greater part in social than in natural science. The com­
parative study of different forms of society and of government,
the description and classification of various forms of social
activity, the investigation of the best way of carrying out
various forms of economic activity-these have been essential
occupations of the various ruling and exploiting classes, which
have served them in planning and directing their activities
both in gaining power and consolidating it, and in developing
their class views in the ideological struggle with other classes.
In the class struggle of the working class, in the struggle for
socialism, social science is for the first time developed as an
essential means for finding out how to transform society ; and
in this it for the first time begins to attain a scientific status
equivalent to that of the natural sciences.
The chief and most essential social function of science is,
then, to be found in the part it plays in the development of
social practice. By carrying on scientific investigations to find
things out and to reach general conclusions on the basis of
what they have found out, people are able to expand and
develop their productive forces, and regulate their social inter�
course, their individual and social activities, corresponding to
the level of their productive forces and the consequent charac­
ter of their production relations. Thus the development of
science is an essential means to the perfection of human life,
serving to increase men's mastery over nature, their social
wealth, the scope and power of their activities, their ability to
manage their affairs and satisfy their requirements.
This bears on the question, formerly raised amongst
I IO
Marxists, whether science develops as part of the class ideology
conditioned by the economic relations of society. Is it correct
to contrast "bourgeois science" and "socialist science" as rival
ideologies serving rival classes and social systems ?
On the one hand, since class ideological preconceptions do
enter into science, it is clear that in actual practice the theories
current in particular fields of science do include vievvs which
arise and develop as part of a class ideology. Such preconcep­
tions arise precisely as products of a given basis of property
and class relations, serve the consolidation and development
of those relations, and disappear when that economic basis
disappears. We cannot understand the history of science, or
its specific character and contradictions at any particular
stage, without taking into account the fact that it is developed
by definite classes, whose class preconceptions play an active
part in its development, and whose economic interests may
further its development in one direction and inhibit it in
another. In this sense it is quite correct to contrast "bourgeois
science" and "socialist science", since the development of
scientific work is differently conditioned in bourgeois and
socialist societies.
On the other hand, the content of the discoveries of science
is not determined by class interests or an economic basis.
Those discoveries are directly connected with the needs of
production and of social intercourse consequent on production,
reflect obj ective facts and laws, serve society generally and
remain valid for any economic basis. A discovery is a discovery,
whoever makes it.
To take a concrete example, that of quantum physics as it
has been developed in bourgeois society today. The discoveries
concerning the laws of motion of matter on the sub-atomic
level reflect those laws of motion, embody the results of
experiments, and so are in no way determined by the ideo­
logical preconceptions of particular classes conditioned by
economic relations and economic interests. This is why
scientists from capitalist and socialist countries can meet in a
scientific conference on common ground, compare their results
and assist one another in furthering the advance of science11I
so far, at least, as the security regulations of their governments
allow. But the theory that events happen without causes,
which has been built around these discoveries and which no
experiment can confirm, is a characteristic product of bourgeois
ideology. Hence in its essential discoveries quantum physics
has not developed as a class ideology, but certain temporary
features of its general theory have been influenced by class
ideology.
So, does science develop as a class ideology ? The economic
and class relations of society do condition the development of
science, and the ideological preconceptions of definite classes
do enter into science and influence its development. They
influence its development either positively or negatively,
assisting scientific discovery or hindering it-just as, ill
general, the economic basis of property and class relations
may be favourable or unfavourable to the further develop·
ment of science. But the discoveries of science and the advance
of scientific theory do not reflect the preconceptions and
interests of any classes but directly reflect the processes of the
objective world-and this is secured by the progressive appli­
cation of scientific methods, which are fact-finding methods
and not methods for spinning out theories to suit the interests
of any particular people.
Moreover, it is evident that science itself plays a very
important part in the ideological development of society.
Scientifically formed concepts, scientific discoveries, enter
into ideologies, and science is a strong and growing influence
in the formation of ideologies-which thus, in some of their
features, become scientific rather than illusory. The higher the
development of science the greater the part it must play in
general ideological development.
For example, the conception of the evolution of species
through natural selection, the conception of the cell as the
unit through which life develops, the conception of the atom,
the conception of the earth as part of the solar system within
the island universe of the milky way, are all scientifically
formed conceptions which have become part of the accepted
view of nature in bourgeois society, and so part of the current
1 12
bourgeois ideology. In general, bourgeois ideology not only
penetrates science by imposing preconceptions on it but is
also itself penetrated by science, at the same time often seeking
to "interpret" and explain away scientific discoveries.
But above all, science plays a part as a weapon of criticism
in the development of ideology. New concepts and discoveries
of science conflict with existing ideology, and shake its pre­
conceptions and the conclusions derived from them. So when
new classes are rising to challenge the sway of the old ruling
classes, and new ideas are being opposed to the old ideas,
scientific investigation and the conclusions derived from it
become a revolutionary weapon of criticism.
Above all, therefore, science plays a progressive and liber­
ating part in social development. Its discoveries enhance men's
collective power to satisfy their requirements, and serve as
means of enlightenment, dispelling the clouds of error and
superstition, and furnishing men with knowledge of nature
and of themselves.
Particular classes, and particular nations led by particular
classes, have made their contributions to the development of
the sciences, temporarily stamping upon them their own
peculiar characteristics and limitations, and often, having
advanced so far in scientific discovery, drawing back, confusing
the theory of science with their own illusions and perverting
its uses. But whatever the limitations and setbacks, what has
been achieved by one class or nation is taken over and carried
on by another. Hence in the history of science there has
developed, and is developing, a heritage of human knowledge
and power. This is the common heritage of mankind, destined
to be used for the emancipation of all the people.
Chapter Nine
S C I ENCE AND SOCIALISM
RIOR
Achievements of Bourgeois Science
to modern capitalist times, the sciences developed
mainly at the most elementary, descriptive and classifica­
tory level. The discoveries of science, considernble as they were
in certain fields, were piecemeal in character, being concerned
with the properties of particular objects and with particular
laws and conceptions, not yet penetrating to the more general
and fundamental laws or affording any reliable general picture
of the interconnections in nature. Since scientific work was
mainly confined to description and classification, the abstrac­
tions and generalisations of the sciences, which constitute the
two other major aspects of scientific work, were of necessity
mainly speculations and guesses. And the general theory of
nature was developed as a part of philosophy and theology, and
embodied all the philosophical and theological illusions of the
times.
It was a feature of science in this stage that it made use of
some extremely primitive conceptions about nature. The
alchemists, for instance, accumulated a considerable store of
knowledge about chemical substances and their combinations,
but their chemical theory was extremely primitive, in the literal
sense that it made use of ideas taken over from primitive times.
Such, for example, was their idea that chemical substances
were living beings made up of matter and spirit, and also
possessing sexual attributes. Again, there was a considerable
development of astronomical observation in slave and feudal
society, but the cosmological theories about the layout of the
universe remained under the influence of primitive ideas.
1 14
P
Engels, in a letter to C. Schmidt, October 2 7, 1 890, pointed
out that there has existed "a prehistoric stock of what we
should today call bunk", which has been drawn on (it is still
sometimes drawn on, by the way) for the purposes of men's
general conception of nature.
"These various false conceptions of nature,'' he wrote, "
have for the most part only a negative economic basis ; the low
economic development of the prehistoric period is supplemen­
ted and partially conditioned and even caused by the false con­
ceptions of nature. And even though economic necessity was
the main driving force of the progressing knowledge of nature
and becomes ever more so, it would surely be pedantic to try
to find economic causes for all this primitive nonsense. The
history of science is the history of the gradual clearing away
of this nonsense or of its replacement by fresh but always less
absurd nonsense."
The position was, therefore, that the ideology of the ruling
classes imposed a certain philosophical and theological
character upon the general theory of the sciences. And at the
same time, the relatively low level of economic development
brought it about that many primitive and nonsensical concep­
tions found their place in the theories about particular things.
These factors could not but hinder the development of the
sciences. They acted as powerful negative factors which had to
be swept away before the modern development of science, and
of production, could become possible.
Modern natural science arose in the period when the power
of the feudal nobility was being broken and the modern
European bourgeois nations were being formed . "Natural
science developed in the midst of the general revolution and
was itself thoroughly revolutionary", wrote Engels in Dialectics
of Nature. And the same class forces which were carrying
through the revolution carried through the development of
sciences. Science appeared as a great force of enlightenment,
breaking through past ignorance and superstition. I t chal­
lenged the old authorities with knowledge based on observa­
tion and experiment. The men who laid the foundations of
modern natural science were of a very different type from the
1 15
.
•
•
clerks and monkish scholars of the feudal order. They were
intensely interested in the development of industry and trade,
in new techniques, in travel and discovery. In their hands the
discoveries of science became instruments for improving the
cond itions of human life.
The rise of new sciences was consequent upon a new
development of industry.
" Following the crusades, industry developed enormously
and brought to light a quantity of new mechanical (weaving,
clockmaking, milling) , chemical (dyeing, metallurgy, alcohol),
and physical (lenses) facts, and this not only gave enormous
material for observation, but also itself provided quite other
means for experimenting than previously existed, and allowed
the construction of new instruments ; it can be said that really
systematic experimental science had now become possible for
the first time." (Engels, Dialectics of .Nature.)
In the modern development of natural science which was
thus initiated, the abstractions and hypotheses of the sciences
ceased to be mere speculations and guesses, and began to be
established as verified scientific truths. Scientific theory began
to replace the former coupling of primitive bunk with philo­
sophical and theological speculation. And what made this
possible for those now engaged in scientific work was the new
equipment which they possessed for accurate observation and
controlled experiment, and the fact that scientific theories
began to be tested not only by scientific observations and
experiments but in the practice of social production. The new
successes of natural science were dependent, therefore, on
advancing technology in social production and the social
utilisation of science as a force of production.
From this starting point, modern bourgeois natural science
has gone on to score great achievements.
( 1 ) There has been achieved the successive development of
separate branches of natural science-the evolution of the
different sciences one from another, and their differentiation
one from another. In this process, the successes scored in one
field have created the possibiiity of beginning the scientific
investigation of new fields. The whole process has unfolded out
116
of the development of the productive forces of capitalist
society, which at one and the same time have presented new
problems for science to tackle and provided the technical
means for tackling them.
(2) In all the successive fields of science there have been
major achievements of analysis-the analysis of the phenomena
of nature into their parts or elements, the demonstration of
the properties, interconnections and laws of motion of the
parts, and so of the laws of motion of the whole. And at the
same time as this analysis of nature has been carried out there
has been carried out a process of generalisation, demonstrating
how the most diverse properties and motions of things are all
the consequences of the operation of very general, universally
applicable laws.
(3) A third maj or achievement of modern natural science
has been the discovery of the laws of change and development
in nature.
In the initial period of modern natural science the view
prevailed that, despite ceaseless changes and interactions,
nature in its main features always remained exactly the same.
"The planets and their satelli tes, once set in motion by the
mysterious 'first impulse', circled on and on in their pre­
destined ellipses for all eternity . . . . The stars remained for
ever fixed and immovable in their places
The earth had
persisted without alteration . . . . The five continents of the
present day had always existed . . . . The species of plants and
animals had been established once and for all when they came
into existence
All change, all development in nature was
demed." (Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Introduction .) But the
successive discoveries of the sciences-in astronomy and cos­
mogony, in physics, in chemistry, in geology and in the bio­
logical sciences-s hattered this whole picture of the fixity of
nature. It was demonstrated that nature in all its parts changes
and develops. And this conclusion emerged not as a general
speculation-such as had been put forward, for instance, in
ancient Greek philosophy-but as a result of detailed investiga­
tions, of the analysis of the various processes of nature and the
discovery of their laws and interconnections.
.
.
.
.
•
J I7
.
•
.
(4) Finally, from the discoveries of the natural sciences there
has gradually emerged a knowledge of nature which is at once
general and detailed-general, in the sense that it embraces
the main processes which take place in nature and their inter­
connections ; and detailed, in the sense that it embraces
particular laws and interconnections of things. And this know­
ledge to an increasing degree has enabled the sciences to give
an account of natural processes entirely based on and tested in
the investigation of those processes themselves.
"We have arrived at the point' ', wrote Engels, "where we
can demonstrate as a whole the interconnection between the
processes in nature not only in particular spheres but also in
the interconnection of these particular spheres themselves, and
so can present in an approximately systematic form a com­
prehensive view of the interconnection in nature by means of
the facts provided by empirical natural science itself. " (Ludwig
Feuerbach, chapter 2 . )
As a result, scientific knowledge ofnature gradually supplants
philosophical speculation about nature. The account wJ:iich is
given both of particular processes and of their general inter­
connection is based on and tested in detailed investigations, and
not arrived at by philosophical deductions or imaginative
guesses.
Formerly, as Engels observed, a "comprehensive view" of
nature could be arrived at "only by putting in place of the real
but as yet unknown interconnections ideal and imaginary ones,
filling out the missing facts by figments of the mind and
bridging the actual gaps merely in imagination". But once
scientific investigations have supplied the missing facts, such a
procedure becomes "not only superfluous, but a step back­
wards" (Ludwig Feuerbach, chapter 2).
Of course, many gaps remain ; and though they keep on
being filled, gaps will always remain. Indeed, the filling in
of one gap often reveals new and hitherto unsuspected ones.
Yet even by the latter part of the last century science had
discovered enough to discredit the old type of philosophical­
theological account of nature. It has become clear that missing
knowledge must always be supplied by pushing on with
I I8
scientific investigation and not by any other means.
Limitations of Bourgeois Science
The sciences, by assisting in the development of industry
and trade, have played an indispensable part in making possible
the establishment and development of the capitalist mode of
production. But the establishment of the capitalist mode of
production has then set limits upon the further development
of the sciences.
The great achievement of capitalism is to have transformed
small-scale individual production into large-scale social pr<r
duction, which is able to harness natural forces and make use of
modem mechanical instruments of production. The growth of
social production-above all in industry, since agriculture
remained relatively backward-brought about, and was assisted
by, an u nprecedented growth of the sciences. In field after
field discoveries were made, new sciences were established and
developed rapidly, nature gave up her secrets to man and the
principles were established for correctly understanding the
laws and interconnections of natural processes.
But social production was directed to definite capitalist ends.
It was capital which exercised the controlling and directing
function in social production. The co-operation in labour,
which is the essential feature of social production, was not
brought about by the labourers themselves but by the capital
which employed and exploited them. It was "not their own
act but the act of the capital which brings and keeps them
together. . . . The directing motive, the end and aim of
capitalist production is to extract the greatest possible amount
of surpl us value, and consequently to exploit labour-power to
the greatest possible extent." (Marx, Capital, Volume I,
chapter J 3 .)
Marx regarded science as a distinct but necessary part of
the production process in modern society. Social labour, he
observed (Capital, Volume III, chapter 5 , section 5 ) , includes
labour of two kinds. First there is the scientific side, involving
the scientific mastery of materials and processes, issuing in
inventions and discoveries which improve the existing instrul l9
ments of production and create new ones. This he termed
"universal labour". And secondly, there is co-operative
Jabour itself, the co-operation of workers in u tilising the
instruments of production.
In capitalist production these two kinds of labour are
separated, and both compelled to serve capital. Co-operative
Jabour is the source of surplus value, and the labourer is simply
"a hand" to work under the direction of the capitalist, or
his managers, for the profit of the capitalist. Advances in
production technique are made and applied not because they
lighten labour or help to satisfy human needs but because and
in so far only as they yield an increased profit. And therefore
science, the theory of production, does not develop as an
adjunct and instrument of social labour but as an adjunct and
instrument of capital which exploits labour-power and directs
production towards capitalist profit.
"The labourer is brought face to face with the intellectual
potencies of the material process of production, as the property
of another, and as a ruling power", wrote Marx. " Modern
industry . . . makes science a productive force distinct from
labour and presses it into the service of capital." (Capital,
Volume I, chapter 1 4, section 5 . )
At first science could advance with giant strides within the
limits of the capitalist relations. For capital needed to pene­
trate the secrets of the natural processes which it used in its
drive for profi t, and, realising the vital importance of science,
was also willing to encourage research along lines for which no
immediate practical application was in sight. Scientists felt
themselves free and unfettered ; it seemed to them that they
were conducting their researches for the sake of hum anity, or
for knowledge for its own sake, and that society was ready
to honour and reward them for their discoveries and to put
their discoveries, where circumstances permitted, to practical
use. Nevertheless, the reality of this bourgeois freedom of
science was that science was working all the time for capital,
which relied on its discoveries, inventions and theories to effect
those improvements in production which would swell capitalist
profit.
1 20
With the development of capital to its modem, monopoly
stage, however, the direct and open subjugation of science to
monopoly capital has gradually come about. This has been
aided by the very advance of science i tself, which has entailed a
great increase in costs and so rendered the sciences almost
completely dependent on financing by the monopolies, directly
or through the state. Not only the researches, inventions and
discoveries of scientists have been pressed into the service of
capital, but scientists personally. They have lost their former
independent status, and been turned into employees and agents
of the monopolies-or of the state, which is itself subjugated
to the monopolies. And their work is correspondingly regi­
mented. The effect of this is to disorganise scientific work,
which can proceed only in directions which the monopolies
will pay for ; to pervert it, principally and increasingly for
military ends, with the growing evils of secrecy and "security",
police and military supervision, "loyalty" tests and tests of
ideological orthodoxy ; and finally to make science appear not
as a source of strength and hope to humanity but as a menace.
The subjection of science to capital, and latterly to monopoly
capital, is equally reflected in the theory of science. From the
viewpoint of the capitalist cl ass, science, necessary as it is, has
always harboured a dangerous ideological trend. This is
because of the materialist tendency of its conclusions, which
begin to explain everything in men's experience from the
material world alone. The bourgeoisie early began to realise
tha t scientific materialism can be socially subversive, if it
begins to submit the foundations of society and of ruling class
privilege to scientific criticism and to show how, armed with
science, the people can achieve their emancipation. Hence for
a long time philosophical theories have been woven around
science, seeking to explain away its radical materialist ten­
dency, and above all seeking to impose limits upon its possible
development and application.
Thus it has been laid down that science can only deal with
certain aspects of the forces of nature, but not with the under­
lying and controlling spiritual forces in the world ; that, indeed,
it cannot penetrate to the real forces at work in nature, but
121
can only deal with some of their effects ; that, finally, it can
only record and correlate the sensations which are produced
in our minds, while the real world outside remains unknowable
and mysterious. Such views about science and in science, which
have become extremely widespread in the capitalist world
today, were already being developed as long ago as the
seventeenth century (for example, by Malebranche, Dialogues
on Metaphysics and Religion, 1 688) .
So we find eminent scientists proclaiming that science is
compatible with almost any kind of "faith"-except faith in
humanity ; that the real world is unknowable ; that the aim of
progress based on scientific knowledge is illusory. At the same
time, the advance of scientific tliscovery cannot be halted.
Great new discoveries continue to be made, based on the new
techniques developed in modern society. But scientists them­
selves become all the more acutely aware of the restrictions
imposed upon them in practice by monopoly interests and in
theory by anti-scientific ideas. Many begin to seek the way out,
some in a kind of anarchic and frustrated individualism, others
in joining the working-class struggle for a new social order in
which science will have unrestricted development in serving
the interests of all members of society.
Science for the People
In capitalism, the direction of social production is a function
of capital, whose aim is capitalist profit. In socialism, on the
other hand, the direction of social production becomes a
function of social labour itself, the aim of which is satisfaction
of the material and cultural requirements of society. The
task of developing the theory of production must always be
in the same hands as the direction of its practice: In capitalism
science is separated from labour and pressed into the service
of capital which exploits labour. But in socialism, science
becomes united with labour. Socialist science is the scientific de­
partment of social labour-in other words, that department
which carries out the research, invention and theoretical work
necessary continuously to expand and perfect socialist produc­
tion, and to satisfy the constantly rising material and cultural
1 22
requirements of socialist society.
Removed from the control of the monopolies and turned
into a public concern, the all-round development of science
becomes a subject of planning under socialism. This does not
mean, of course, that the discoveries to be made over a period
are planned in advance, since no one can know what is going
to be discovered until the discovery is made. It means that the
allocation of the resources and the direction for research in
all fields are planned. Such planning entails the combination
of short-term and long-term considerations. At one and the
same time science concentrates on the solution of immediate
practical problems, and undertakes fundamental researches
dictated by the requirements of theoretical advance and
aspiring to results far beyond current practice.
A new type of scientist emerges, recruited from the ranks
of the working people. And science, from being the preserve
of a single social group associated with the exploiters,
eventually becomes the common possession and concern of
all. This can only set free immense new forces for scientific
work and for the utilisation of its results, and lead to an
immense acceleration and expansion of science.
At the same time, ideological preconceptions are finally
thrown off. The theory of science is developed in line with its
discoveries, on the basis of socialist practice, as a guide to
further discovery and practical application, with free discus­
sion and criticism.
At an early stage, before the development of the separate
sciences, science was scarcely distinguished from philosophy.
One frature of the history of phil osophy and of science is the
separating of the sciences from philosophy. As sciences branch
off from philosophy, general ideas about nature are estab­
lished on the basis of the scientific investigation of nature.
Yet, as we have seen, philosophical ideas continue to penetrate
the sciences, influencing particularly the more abstract parts
of scientific theory. The emancipation of science from philo­
sophical preconceptions is only completed with the develop­
ment of science under socialism. For then philosophy ceases to
exist in its old form as a theory of the world independent of
1 23
science and imposing its views on science, but develops as a
summation of the principles inherent in scientific · thought
itself-the principles of logic and dialectics-and therefore as a
theoretical instrument and guide in scientific work.
Commenting on the relations of science and philosophy,
Engels wrote in Dialectics of Nature :
"Natural scientists believe that they free themselves from
philosophy by ignoring or abusing it. They cannot, however,
make any headway without thought, and for thought they
need thought determinations. They take these categories un­
reflcctingly from the common consciousness of so-called
educated persons . . . . Hence they are no less in bondage
to philosophy, and those who abuse philosophy most are
slaves to precisely the worst vulgarised relics of the worst
philosophies . . . . Natural scientists allow philosophy to prolong
a pseudo-existence by making shift with the dregs of the old
metaphysics. Only when natural and historical science has
adopted dialectics will all the philosophical rubbish . . . be
superfluous, disappearing in positive science."
In socialism alone, moreover, can there be realised com­
pletely the true disinterestedness essential to the fullest
development of science.
The process of scientific investigation demands that con­
clusions shall be drawn on the basis of thorough investigation
alone, without consideration for what this or that interest
would like to be the case, or this or that school of thought
believes. And it demands that every conclusion shall be subject
to criticism on the basis of further investigation.
This necessary characteristic of scientific work was repeatedly
stressed by Marx. Thus, for example, in contrasting Ricardo's
scientific approach in political economy to that of Malthus, he
wrote in his Theories of Surplus Value of "Ricardo's dis­
interestedness" and "scientific honesty", of "Ricardo's scien­
tific impartiality", which "comes out just as inconsiderately
against the bourgeoisie as in other cases he comes out against
the proletariat and the aristocracy". Malthus, on the other
hand, committed a "sin against science" by adapting his con­
clusions to the interests of ruling class apologetics. "The
1 24
contemptible Malthus draws . . . only those conclusions which
are acceptable and useful to the aristocracy as against the
bourgeoisie and to both as against the proletariat." He sought
to "accommodate science to a point of view not derived from
science itself . . . but borrowed from outside, from extrinsic
interests foreign to science".
In society based on exploitation barriers cannot but arise
against disinterested inquiry. Investigations are started, but
the point comes when stronger and stronger social pressures
operate to persuade many scientists to trim their conclusions to
various ideological and political requirements of the ruling
class, or even to bring the investigations to a premature end.
Only when exploitation of man by man is abolished, and
inquiry is consciously directed to the end of making life more
abundant for everyone, are all the barriers to disinterested
inquiry thrown down. For then the very interest which pro­
motes inquiry-that is to say, the common interest in obtaining
reliable knowledge as a means to life-demands that nothing
shall stand in the way of prosecuting inquiries to the en d.
Of course, the old habit of demanding that investigations
shall prove what some particular group wishes to be proved,
and of obj ecting to any questioning of certain conclusions, is
one which dies hard. The development of socialism, on the
other hand, demands that science shall be truly disinterested,
and shall carry on its inquiries without consideration for what
any particular person or persons have asserted or wish to be
believed. This was vigorously asserted by Stalin. "It is generally
recognised that no science can develop and flourish without a
battle of opinions, without freedom of criticism." (Concerning
Marxism in Linguistics.) "Science is called science just because
it does not recognise fetishes, just because it does not fear
to raise its hand against the obsolete. and antiquated, and
because it lends an attentive ear to the voice of experience, of
practice." (Speech at First All- Union Conference of Stakhanovites.)
In general, socialism sets science free from all the limitations
and restrictions hitherto imposed on its development. Just as
the socialist ownership of the means of production removes
the fetters imposed on the development of production by
1 25
private ownership and appropriation, and renders possible the
unrestricted development of production to satisfy people's
needs, so does it remove the fetters imposed on the develop­
ment of the sciences. The methods of scientific investigation
are no different under socialism from capitalism ; for these
methods, gradually perfected during the successive stages of
economic development, are not the product of any particular
system. The point is that the economic, political and ideologi­
cal factors hindering their universal application are removed.
From socialism, wrote Engels in Dialectics of Nature, "will
date a new epoch in history, in which mankind itself, and with
mankind all branches of its activity, and especially natural
science, will experience an advance that will put everything
preceding it in the deepest shade".
The Science of Society
Bourgeois science could penetrate deeply into the laws of
natural processes because the bourgeoisie needed such know­
ledge for the sake of its profits. The capitalists do not want
fairy stories about electricity, for example, but knowledge of
its rear laws (although their ideology still impels them to
believe not a few fairy stories) . But as regards the laws of social
development, the capitalists, though they can use masses of
superficial data about society, can never recognise them. For
to do so would lead straight to the conclusion of the fall of
themselves and their whole system.
Whatever the achievements of the natural sciences in
capitalis t society, the greatest limitation which that society
places on the development of the sciences consists of the divorce
of natural from social science. There is no unified science.
Instead there are natural sciences, with no science of society,
and so no scientific knowledge of how to develop and apply the
sciences in the service of mankind.
The placing of social science on a firm basis, the discovery of
the fundamental laws of development of society, only begins
with the beginning of the struggle for socialism, and continues
only in association with that struggle and then with the actual
building of socialist society. The science of society develops as
126
the scientific theory guiding the working-class struggle for
socialism. It arises and develops as the theoretical basis for the
social conceptions of the working class.
Bourgeois social science reached its highest development in
the work of the British investigators Adam Smith and David
Ricardo, whose inquiry into the laws of the production and
distribution of the means of subsistence in human society laid
the foundations for the science of political economy, the science
of the economic basis of society. These investigations were
undertaken to serve the needs of managemen t of nascent
capitalist economy. But the conditions of development of
capitalist rule and capitalist exploitation inhibi ted any further
scientific advance by bourgeois investigators. They could not
go on, as Marx did, to uncover, by the. discovery of surplus
value, the secret of capitalist exploitation.
Subsequent bourgeois economics, and bourgeois social
science generally, has busied itself with the accumulation of a
vast array of facts and correlations of facts. It has also accumu­
lated a considerable amount of practical knowledge about how
to operate the capitalist system. But it has sed ulously avoided
investigation into the real relations of production on which
those facts are based and from which alone they can be
understood, substituting superficial or false explanations.
What Marx said of "vulgar" bourgeois economics can be
said of bourgeois social science generally. It "deals with
appearances only . . . seeks plausible explanations of the
most obtrusive phenomena for bourgeois daily use, but for
the rest confines itself to systematising in a pedantic way, and
proclaiming for everlasting truths, the trite ideas held by the
self-complacent bourgeoisie with regard to their uwn world,
to them the best of all possible worlds." (Capital, Vol . I, ch. r ,
section 4 (footnote) ) . And with such science, "it was no
longer a question whether this theorem or that was true, but
whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or
inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In pl ace of dis­
interested inquirers, there were hired prize-fighters ; in place
of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil
intent of apologetics." (Capital, Preface to 2nd edition.)
127
So while there are bourgeois investigations establishing
numerous facts and a few isolated and superficial laws of social
science, there is, and can be, no bourgeois science of society
embracing the fundamental laws, but only the Marxist, socialist
science of society. Marx's discoveries about the fundamental
laws of social development were possible only because he took
up a standpoint against capitalist society, and recognised the
revolutionary role of the working class and the necessity of
the replacement of capitalism by socialism. By these discover­
ies, he established the basis of social science as Galileo and
Newton of physical science, or Schwann and Darwin of bio­
logical science.
Tile End of the Old Ideology
Because the socialist movement develops scientific conceptions
of society, of social relations and the laws of social development,
it follows that it opposes and begins to destroy ideological
illusions.
The socialist movement opposes scientific ideas to the
ideological preconceptions of the exploiting classes. In other
words, in the struggle for socialism scientific ideas are pitted
agaimt old illusions. The aim of society without exploitation
carries with it the struggle to end ideological illusions of all
kinds and to supplant them by science-in other words, to
develop a universal scientific ideology.
Instead of developing a false consciousness, the struggle for
socialism requires the endeavour to conceive things as they
are and not in fantastic connections. Instead of employing
illusory ideas to disguise real social relations and real social
motives to serve the exploi.tation of one class by another, it
requires true ideas to serve the ending of all exploitation and
the satisfaction of the needs of the whole of society.
In the struggle under capitalism, the working-class party
must continually fight to eradicate the influence of capitalist
ideology in its own ranks and among the working people, to
base its whole policy, mass work and propaganda on scientific
theory and to educate the whole movement in this theory.
Unlike the views of the exploiting classes, the view of society
1 28
of the working class, which serves the working-class struggle,
does not, and cannot, arise and develop spontaneously as a
class ideology, but arises and develops as a science.
And when the working class has conquered power and is
leading in the building of socialist society, then the task is
posed of finally eradicating all the hangovers of the old
ideology from all departments of social life. From ideological
misconception, society as a whole must advance to a scientific
outlook.
This advance is possible and necessary because the ideologies
of the old society based on exploitation, with their false
consciousness and mystification, lose their basis when socialism
comes into being.
In socialism, property in the means of production is public
or co-operative property, and production is consciously regu·
lated and planned. For what sort of ideas, then, does socialist
economy provide the basis ? Precisely for scientific ideas,
developing through the extension of scientific understanding
of man and his conditions of life. Such ideas alone can serve
the consolidation and development of the socialist economic
basis. For this end cannot be served by ideas which mystify
and delude people. Its success requires knowledge of the laws
of nature and society, and a social consciousness informed by
such knowledge.
In so far, therefore, as other modes of consciousness persist
in socialist society, they are merely hangovers from the old
conditions, injurious to the consolidation and development of
the socialist system. They must therefore be actively combated,
and eventually must give way and disappear before the new
scientific socialist consciousness.
The illusions which last longest are those of religion-these
being also the oldest. For so long as numbers of people remain
comparatively poor and ignorant, some basis remains for
religious illusions. Moreover, a religious form can be given
also to socialist strivings ; and in this respect religion can, under
certain conditions, play even a subsidiary positive role in the
building of socialism, as we see in the case of the reformed
churches in socialist countries.
1 29
"The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case,
only finally vanish," wrote Marx, "when the practical rel ations
of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible
and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and
nature.
"The life process of society, which is based on the process
of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until
it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is
consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled
plan." (Capital, Volume I, chapter 1 , section 4 .)
When the life process of society is indeed carried on by
freely associated men in accordance with a settled plan, and
when in consequence men are involved in none but perfectly
intelligible and reasonable relations with their fellow men and
nature, then, naturally enough, there is no basis left for any
illusions about the conditions of human life, for any mystifica­
tion, and human consciousness finally sheds such mystification
and illusions.
Scientific Foundations of Communist Consciousness
The new communist consciousness, which is achieved as a uni­
versal mode of consciousness in communist society, is the con­
sciousness of new communist people-of working people who
have never known exploitation and who are masters of their
country, who live by co-operation and are free of the selfish
individualism of the private property owner. The conscious
existence of such people requires no ideological illusions. On
the contrary, it requires a clear, unclouded consciousness, con­
stantly enriched and developed as a result of free inquiry,
discussion and criticism.
This presupposes knowledge of society and its laws, and
of how to utilise those laws in the interests of society ; and
knowledge of nature and of how to make it serve man-both
constituting parts of a single developing whole of scientific
knowledge.
In communist society, natural and social science are no longer
divorced. "Only if science starts from nature is it real science",
wrote Marx. "
History itself is a real part of natural
1 30
history, of the development of nature into man. Later natural
science will include the science of man in the same way as
the science of man will include natural science. There will be
only one science." (Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts.)
In this "one science", Marx observed, "man" or society,
becomes "the object of material consciousness" ; that is to
say, the conception of man and society loses its former illusory
ideological character, and is as scientifically based as the cone
ception of nature. And similarly, "the higher needs of 'man
as man' become real needs" ; that is to say, in place of illusory
ideas concerning " the higher needs of man", which in fact
express the ideology of exploiting classes who stifle the satis·
faction of the real needs of the masses, the conception of man's
needs is based on his real needs. These real needs which
develop on the basis of the material life of society include far
more than elementary physical needs, since from this basis
arise the needs of culture, knowledge and fellowship.
The essential feature of "man as man", of man as distinct
from the animal, is the creation and satisfaction of his own
needs through the social mastery of nature. In society based on
exploitation, the mass of people are producing for the benefit
of others, not for themselves ; only their minimum physical or
animal needs are satisfied ; hence they are denied a properly
human existence, and, as a compensation, their "higher needs"
are represented as belonging to some spiritual life, divorced
from material life. In communist society, when exploitation of
man by man is abolished, the whole of men's requirements,
material and spiritual, can be understood as arising from their
co-operative mastery of nature, and as being satisfied on the
basis of the continuous expansion and perfection of social
production.
As a result of the development of socialism, therefore, it
eventually comes about that science plays the determining part
in forming people's whole outlook. People will then have made
themselves free to build up knowledge and control of all the
aspects of their lives, for the sake of welfare and happiness and
of realising the fullness of life.
Part Three
TR UTH AND FREED OM
Chapter Ten
TRUTH
Absolute and Partial Truth
E have seen that in the development of our ideas all
kinds of illusions arise, but also truth. \Vhat, then, is
truth ? It is correspondence between ideas and objective
reality.
Such correspondence between our ideas and reality is only
gradually established, and then the correspondence is often no
more than partial and incomplete. For an idea may not in all
respects correspond to its object but may correspond only
partially ; and there may be much in the object which is not
reproduced in the idea at all, so that the idea and its corre­
spondence to the object are incomplete. In such cases, we should
not say that our idea was false, but yet it would not be
absolutely-completely and in all respects-true. Truth, there­
fore, is not a property which an idea, or a proposition, either
possesses or does not possess ; it may belong to an idea to a
certain degree, within certain limits, in certain respects.
Of course, there can be no doubt that some propositions
are indeed absolutely true : they are quite well enough
established for us to be able confidently to assert this.
This applies, for example, to many statements of particular
facts. These facts were the case, and consequently the proposi­
tions which state them are true, absolutely true, and always
will be true without modification. William the Conqueror did
in fact invade England in the year J 066 : therefore the
proposition asserting that fact is an absolute truth.
And certain general statements, too, are absolutely true.
Lenin instanced two of them in Materialism and Empirio1 35
W
Criticism-people cannot live without eating, and platonic
love alone will not beget babies. These general statements
correspond to facts, and their correspondence is absolute. And
there are plenty more such general statements whose title to
absolute truth need never be questioned.
But most of the statements which we make cannot be said
in this way to be absolutely true. For we do not in general
confine our statements to "truisms" and to the bald assertion
of well-established facts. Most of the statements we make,
whether statements of particular facts or of general conclusions,
may be true enough for certain purposes but yet not be
absolutely true, in the sense of an absolute correspondence
between statement and reality. On the contrary, they require
to be corrected, improved upon, restated in the light of new
experience and new knowledge. But they are not for that reason
untrue : they are partial, relative, approximate truths.
This characteristic of truth-that it is for the most part
partial and not absolute, approximate and not exact, provi·
sional and not final-is very well known to science. The laws
which science establishes certainly reflect objective processes ;
they correspond to the real motion and interconnection of
thi n gs in the external world. Yet science has established few
laws which can claim to be absolute truths.
For example, the laws of classical mechanics, which formu·
late the principles of the mechanical interactions of bodies and
are continually and confidently employed in all kinds of
engineering projects, are now known not to correspond to the
movement of matter on a sub-atomic scale. In other words,
they are not absolute truths. But we do not for that reason hold
that classical mechanics is now shown to be false. Quantum
mechanics provides a better approximation than classical
mechanics, because its laws not only correspond to the move­
ment of matter on a sub-atomic scale but also inclufle the laws
of classical mechanics as limiting cases ; but even so, no
scientist would claim that quantum mechanics either was an
absolute truth.
In general, science has no interest in absolute truth. Indeed ,
if o nce any proposition is asserted as an absolute truth, there
1 36
is an end of all further inquiry : if absolute truth is attained,
then there is no room for further investigation. The claim to
establish absolute truth is therefore actually antithetical to
science, since such a claim must prevent us from carrying on
further investigation, from advancing our knowledge, from
proceeding from less approximate to more approximate truth,
in other words, from pursuing science.
"Really scientific works therefore as a rule avoid such
dogmatic and moral expressions as error and truth,'' wrote
Engels, "while these expressions meet us everywhere in works
in which empty phras emongering attempts to impose on
us as the sovereign result of sovereign thought." (Anti-Duhriug,
Part I, chapter g.)
•
•
.
Truth and Error
If we recognise that, outside a very limited field of statements
of undoubted fact, the truth of every state me nt is partial,
approximate and provisional only, then it follows that we must
always be prepared to correct and modify our statements in
the light of new experience.
But more than that. When new experiences arise, calling
for the correction and modification of certain statements, then
to persist in still asserting them in their old, unmodified form
means that they turn from truth into falsehood in the new
conditions.
For example, the laws of classical mechanics are still as true
as ever they were for most engineering purposes, and no one
proposes to dispense with them and reject them as false.
Nevertheless, since experience has shown that they do not hold
without modification for all known movements of matter, it
follows that to assert the Newtonian laws as applying without
qualification to all matter in motion v.·ould be to assert an
untruth.
An approximate and partial truth, which is true enough
within certain limits, can become, therefore, an untruth if it is
applied beyond those limits.
Again, Marx and Engels stated that when socialist �ociety
was established, then the state would eventually wither away.
1 37
This was and is true-but not without qualification. Marx
and Engels could not state the qualification, because they
lacked the necessary experience. But the experience of building
socialism in one country, the Soviet Union, has shown that
so long as socialist and capitalist countries continue to coexist
the state must remain in being in socialist countries ; only when
socialism is established on a world scale can the state finally
wither away. It follows that to assert now, without qualification,
that when socialism is established the state will wither away is
to assert something false. Indeed, it would be to assert some­
thing not merely false but definitely harmful in relation to
existing socialist countries : for such an assertion would lead
to a lack of concern for strengthening the socialist state,
therefore to a possible weakening of the socialist state and to
the capitalists' taking advantage of this weakening to intervene
and overthrow the socialist system.
This shows that, as Engels pointed out in Anti-Dilhring, "truth
and error, like all concepts which are expressed in polar
opposites, have absolute validity only in an extremely limited
field . . . As soon as we apply the antithesis between truth and
error outside that narrow field . . . both poles of the anti­
thesis change into their opposites, truth becomes error and
error truth."
Just as truths are for the most part only approximate and
contain the possibility of being converted into untruths, so are
many errors found to be not absolute falsehoods bl.lt to contain
a germ of truth.
Whatever people say is said in terms of the experiences and
ideas available to them. It follows that while they may be led
to make quite erroneous statements, nevertheless it can happen
that erroneous statements reflect, though erroneously, some­
thing which is actually the case.
For instance, the Puritans in the English Revolution said
they were the elect of God. But even this contained a germ
of truth-namely, that they were in fact the rising progressive
social force which was bound to overthrow the decaying forces
of the old society. Their ideas about being "the elect of God"
were certainly erroneous ; but this was their way of expressing
1 38
something which was undoubtedly the case.
Similarly many erroneous views in science and philosophy,
which have had to be, not modified, but rejected as errors,
concealed a certain truth which received in them an erroneous,
distorted expression.
In general, errors which are simply plain, downright errors
and nothing else-errors which contain no element of truth
at all-are less important and are more easily disposed of than
errors which have a certain basis in fact. The former can be
refuted by pointing to facts which contradict them, or can be
exposed as simple nonsense. The latter are apt to be far more
influential, and therefore far more dangerous. And to refute
such errors, it is necessary not simply to reject them and sweep
them aside but to show how the truth is distorted in them
and to re-state that truth free of distortion.
This illustrates what Lenin meant when he wrote in his
Philosophical Notebooks :
"Philosophical idealism is only nonsense from the standpoint
of crude, simple, metaphysical materialism. On the other hand,
from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, philosophical
idealism is a one-sided, exaggerated
development
of
one of the features, sides, facets of knowledge into an absolute,
divorced from matter, from nature, apotheosised. Idealism is
clericalism. True. But philosophical idealism is . . . a road to
clericalism through one of the shades of the infinitely complex
knowledge
of man . . . . It is not groundless ; it is a sterile
flower undoubtedly, but it is a sterile flower that grows on the
living tree of . . . human knowledge."
We should recognise, then, that certain erroneous views,
including idealist views, could represent, in their time, a con·
tribution to truth--.since they were, perhaps, the only ways
in which certain truths could first begin to come to expression.
But that does not mean that we need have the slightest use for
such erroneous views, once their erroneousness can be detected.
Idealists made a contribution to philosophy, for example : but
that does not imply that we should have the slightest use for
idealist philosophy today, in our present conditions, when such
truth as was expressed by idealism can be expressed much
1 39
.
•
.
.
•
.
.
•
.
better without it, and when the essential distortion and false­
hood contained in idealism can be fully exposed.
The Relativity of Truth
We have seen, then, that most truth is approximate, partial
and incomplete, and that error is to be found in truth, and
truth in error. Hence on any subject we generally po�sess a
measure of truth, but not the absolute truth. The measure of
truth about anything which we can achieve at any particular
time, and how-in what terms and how adequately-we
express it, depends on the means which are available at that
time for discovering and expressing truth.
Truth is always relative to the particular means whereby
we have arrived at it. We can only express the truth about
things in terms of our own experience of them and of the
operations whereby we have come to know about them.
But at the same time, this truth does relate to the objective,
material world and constitutes an ever more adequate reflec­
tion of the real properties and laws of motion of objective
things and processes.
Therefore while the form of expression of truth and the
limits of its approximation to objective reality depend on us, its
content, what it is about, the objective reality to which it
corresponds, does not depend on us.
I n this sense there is an element of both relativity and
absoluteness, of subjectivity and objectivity, in every truth.
Truth is relative inasmuch as it is expressed in terms depending
on the particular circumstances, experience and means of
arriving at truth of the people who formulate it. It is absolute
inasmuch as what is expressed or reproduced in these terms is
objective reality, existing independently of men's knowledge
of it.
If the side of relativity only is stressed, then there results
subjective idealism and relativism, for which truth relates
exclusively to our own observations and operations, not to the
objective world, the nature of which is said to be unknowable
and inexpressible. Sir Arthur Eddington, for example, noting
that our knowledge of the atom was mainly derived from
1 40
observations of pointer readings and flashes on screens-since
these were the indications afforded by the apparatus used to
explore the atomic world-concluded that we in fact knew
nothing about atoms existing in the objective world but only
about the "pointer readings and similar indications. " ( The
Nature of the Physical World, chapter 1 2 . )
If, o n the other hand, only the other side i s stressed, the
side of absoluteness or objectivity, then what results is dog­
matism. Thus earlier physicists, for example, confident that
their physical theories did reflect objective material reality,
stated that the world consisted of nothing but little, hard
particles like microscopic billiard balls, and that no other kind
of material reality existed.
Clearly, it is necessary to take into account, both that truth
is reflection of objective reality, and that this reflection is at
the same time conditioned and limited by the particular
circumstances under which it was created.
"For dialectical materialism," wrote Lenin, "there is no
impassable boundary between relative and absolute truth
The materialist dialectics of Marx and Engels certainly does
contain relativism, but is not reducible to relativism, that is,
it recognises the relativity of all our knowledge, not in the
sense of the denial of obj ective truth, but in the sense of the
historically conditioned nature of the limits of the approxima­
tion of our knowledge of this truth." (Materialism and Empirio ­
Criticism, chapter 2.)
Asking "Does objective truth exist ?" Lenin pointed out
that two questions must be distinguished and not confounded
together :
" ( l ) Is there such a thing as objective truth, that is, can
human ideas have a content that does not depend on a subject,
that does not depend either on a human being or on humanity ?
"(2) If so, can human ideas, which give expression to
objective truth, express it all at one time, as a whole, uncon­
ditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively?"
The answer to these questions is clear.
( l ) Human ideas can, and do, have a content that does not
depend either on particular people or on humanity generally,
141
.
.
.
•
since these ideas reproduce objective reality existing inde­
pendently of any person's idea of it.
(2) These ideas do not reproduce objective reality in its
entirety and with complete faithfulness, but only approxi­
mately, and relatively to the way in which people have been
able to discover and express truth.
Since truth consists in the correspondence of ideas with
objective reality, it is evident that we have always to reckon
with both sides of the relationship-the subject as well as the
object. On the one hand is objective reality, which depends
in no way on the ideas which we may form about it. On the
other hand, ideas are formed in the process of human activity
and are therefore conditioned by the nature of the activity
out of which they are produced . How, in what form, with what
approximation, reality is expressed in our ideas depends on
us and our activity-that is, on the subjective factor. But that
which is expressed in our ideas, their content, what they are
about, does not depend on any subjective factor, but constitutes
as Lenin expressed it in the same chapter, an "objectively
existing measure or model existing independently of humanity
to which our relative knowledge approximates".
Relative and Absolute Truth : Causality, Space and Time
As an example of how absolute truth is expressed through
relative truth, we can consider the conceptions of causality,
and of space and time.
Our ideas about causality in nature are produced as a result
of our experiences in dealing with natural objects. We learn
from experience that we ourselves can produce changes in
nature in a regulated way, and on this basis we formulate ideas
of causal connections and causal law. Thus the way in which
we come to recognise causality, and the ideas of causal con­
nections which we express from time to time, are subjectively
conditioned. With the development of production and of social
relations and social activities, the conception of causality has
been modified and changed-animism, final causes, mechani­
cal interaction and dialectical interaction being so many stages
in the development of the idea of causality.
1 42
But while our ideas about causality arise from our experience
and depend upon the character of that experience, the exis­
tence of causality in nature is an objective fact, altogether
independent of ourselves and our experience. It is because we,
as subjects, experience our own power to cause changes in
external objects, and similarly experience the compelling
power of those objects upon ourselves, that we first arrive at the
idea of causality ; and that idea is elaborated and developed in
relation to the development of social life. But the reality which
corresponds to this idea, and which is reproduced with a
greater or lesser degree of adequacy in our ideas of causal
connections, is an objective reality, independent of ourselves,
independent of any relationship between subject and object.
Idealism stresses only the subjective side of the idea of
causality. Idealist philosophers have maintained that causality
was invented simply to bring a rational order into our
experience and that it is then erroneously attributed to the
external world independent of experience. But in opposition to
idealism, "the recognition of objective law in nature and the
recognition that this law is reflected with approximate fidelity
in the mind of man is materialism". (Lenin, Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism, chapter 3 .)
It is the same with our conceptions of space and time.
Starting with our perceptions of the passage of time and of
the spatial characteristics and relations of objects, and with
the discovery of methods of expressing the spatial and temporal
properties and relations of things by means of measurements,
our general conceptions of space and time have been graduall y
developed and elaborated. The conception of space and time
is always relative to human experience, but space and time
do not depend on human experience. On the contrary, "the
basic forms of all being are space and time" (Engels, Anti­
Diihring, Part I, chapter 5 ) , and human conceptions of space
and time are always approximate reflections of real spatial and
temporal relations.
"Recognising the existence of objective reality, i.e., matter
in motion, independently of our mind, materialism must also
inevitably recognise the objective reality of space and time,"
1 43
wrote Lenin. " . . . The mutability of human conceptions of
space and time no more refutes the objective reality of space
and time than the mutability of scientific knowledge of the
structure and forms of matter in motion refutes the objective
reality of the external world . . . . It is one thing, how, with
the help of various sense-organs, man perceives space, and
how, in the course of a long historical development, abstract
ideas of space are derived from these perceptions ; it is an
entirely different thing whether there is an objective reality
independent of mankind which corresponds to these percep­
tions and conceptions of mankind
Our experience and our
perceptions adapt themselves more and more to objective space
and time, and reflect them ever more correctly and
profoundly." (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 3 .)
.
•
.
.
The Progress of Truth
How far is the human mind capable of attaining to and
establishing truth ?
Complete, full, absolute truth-the whole truth and nothing
but the truth about everything-is something we can never
attain. But it is something towards which we are always
approximating.
We advance towards full, comprehensive truth, embracing
not only particular facts but general laws and interconnections,
by means of a series of particular, provisional and approximate
truths. The truth which can be formulated by any individual,
or by mankind at any particular time, is always approximate,
incomplete and subject to correction. But individuals learn
from each other, both from each other's achievements and
from each other's mistakes ; and the same applies to the
succeeding generations of society. Therefore the sum of incom­
plete, particular, provisional and approximate truths is always
approaching nearer to but never reaching the goal cf complete
comprehensive, final and absolute truth.
The world which is reproduced in our ideas and statements
really exists. They are true in proportion as they correspond
to it and reproduce it correctly. We test this truth in experience,
in practice. The correspondence is never complete, exact,
1 44
absolute. But it continually approaches yet is always infinitely
distant from that absolute limit as truth and knowledge
continually advance, as men perfect their instrumen ts of
production and their means of acquiring knowledge.
Thus Engels wrote (Anti-Duhring, Part I, chapter 3 ) :
"The p e rcep tio n that all the phenomena of nature are
systematically interconnected drives science on to prove this
systematic interconnection throughout, both in general and in
detail. But an adequate, exhaustive, scientific statement of this
interconnection, the formulation in thought of an exact picture
of the world -system in which we live, is impossible for us
and will always remain impossible.
"If at any time in the evolution of mankind such a final,
conclusive system of the interconnections within the world­
physical as well as mental and historical-were brought
to completion, this would mean that human knowledge
had reached i ts limit.
Mankind therefore finds itself
faced with a contradiction : on the one hand, it has to gain an
exhaustive knowledge of the world system in all its inter­
relations ; and on the oth e r hand, because of the nature both
of man and of the world system, this task can never be com­
pletely fulfilled. But this contradiction lies not only in the
nature of the two factors-the world and man-it is also the
main lever of all intel l ectual advance, and finds its solution
continuously, day by day, in the endless p rogr e ssive evolution
of humanity. . . .
"Each mental image of the world system is and remains
in actual fact li mi t ed, objectively through the historical stage,
and subjectively through the physical and mental constitution
of its maker."
Nevertheless, through the endless progressive evolu tion of
such limited mental images of the objective world, mankind
continually attains more compl e te truth, more comprehensi ve
knowledge.
"Is human thought sovereign ?" Engels asked, meaning
thereby : can we achieve the complete truth about everything ,
can we achieve comprehensive and fully certified knowledge ?
"Before we can answer yes or no we must inquire : what is
1 45
•
•
•
human thought ? Is it the thought of the individual man ? No.
But i t exists only as the individual thought of many billions
of past, present and future men.
In other words, the
sovereignty of thought is realised in a series of extremely
unsovereignly-thinking human beings ; the knowledge which
has an unconditional claim to truth is realised in a series of
relative errors ; neither the one nor the other can be fully
realised except through an endless eternity of human existence.
"Here again we find the same contradiction as we found
above, namely, between the character of human thought,
necessarily conceived as absolute, and its reality in individual
human beings with their extremely limited thought. This is a
contradiction which can only be solved in the infinite pro­
gression, or what is for us, at least from a practical standpoint,
the endless succession, of generations of mankind. In this sense
human thought is just as much sovereign as not sovereign, and
its capacity for knowledge just as much unlimited as limited.
It is sovereign and unlimited in its disposition, its vocation,
its possibilities and its historical purpose ; it is not sovereign
and it is limited in its individual expression and in its realisation
at each particular moment." (Engels, Anti-Diihring, Part I,
chapter 9 .)
The materialist theory of truth shows us how to avoid
dogmatism, which lays down general principles, however
arrived at, as unalterable and final truths-refusing to examine
their foundations and refusing to alter and correct them, or
if need be reject th e m aitogether, in the light of new experience
and new circumstances.
And at the same time it shows us how to avoid the narrow
empiricism which confines itself to collecting and co-ordinating
facts, is not interested in discovering the underlying laws of
motion and interconnection manifested in those facts, and is
sceptical about dl bold generalisations and theories. Like
dogmatism, empiricism cannot see beyond the limited
experience of the present moment.
These attitudes, common enough in philosophy and the
sciences, confront us also in the working-class movement. In
the working-class movement dogmatism consists in learning
1 46
•
•
•
certain formulas by rote and thinking that every new problem
can be solved by simple repetition of these formulas. As a
result of this, people fail to assimilate the lessons of experience
and prove unable boldly to advance new policies to meet a
new situation . Empiricism, on the other hand, consists in
being engrossed in petty, day-to-day "practical" problems,
attending only to these and regarding ail other questions as
unimportant, as the concern of "in tellectuals" and not of
practical workers. As a result of this, too, people fail to
assimilate the lessons of experience and prove unable boldly
to advance new policies. Thus both dogmatism and empiricism
lead to the same result, and are capable of doing great harm
to the working-class movement, preventing it from finding
the right road leading towards the achievement of socialism.
Marxism is both critical and revolutionary.
It is critical because it is against dogmas, insists on continual
testing and re-testing of all ideas and all policies in the crucible
of revolutionary practice-recognising that truth changes, that
what is true enough today may become false tomorrow unless
it is corrected and developed into new truth.
But simply to be critical is not enough . A merely critical
attitude is negative and can lead to paralysis of action.
Marxism is also revolutionary. It is revolutionary because
it does not only criticise, it goes forward to replace the old
by the new. It is firm in its standpoint, certain of the truth
and justice of i ts cause, confident in the correctness of its
principles as the basis for the future advance, and verifies
its revolutionary ideas in revolutionary practice.
Chapter Eleven
T H E R O O TS O F K N O W L E D G E
N
What is Knowledge ?
achieving true ideas about things we also win and extend
knowledge about them. What, then, is knowledge ?
Unless we make our ideas correspond with reality, we
certainly do not possess knowledge. To win knowledge is to
replace ignorance or untrue ideas by true ideas. Hence the
growth of kno\vledge is to be found in the growth of true
ideas within the totality of ideas, some of which are true
while others arc not.
But simply to equate knowledge with truth is not to define
knowledge. For the question arises : How do we know that
our true ideas are true ? Simply to state or believe something
true is not to know it.
For example, some astronomers say there is life on Mars.
Perhaps there is, in which case what they say is true. But
they do not yet know there is life on Mars, for they have not
yet gathered sufficient evidence. The question will be settled
when space-ships make a thorough survey of Mars. On the
other hand, when astronomers say that Mars is a planet they
are expressing knowledge of the matter ; for in this case what
they say is based on reliable methods of investigation.
Again, the ancient Greek philosophers said that bodies were
composed of atoms. We today know that this is true-but
they did not. It was simply a lucky guess on their part. How
do we know that bodies are composed of atoms ? It is because
while they merely speculated and made lucky guesses about
the nature of matter, we have systematically investigated it,
have based our ideas on such investigation, and so have tested
1 48
I
and proved the truth of those particular ideas. On the other
hand, there remain many things about which we know no
more than the ancient Greeks-we are merely speculating
about such things, just as they were ; and j ust as with them,
it remains to be found out how near the truth are our
speculations.
vVe gain knowledge, then, only in so far as we develop our
ideas in such a way that their correspondence with reality is
proved and tested. Only then can we lay claim to knowledge.
The development of knowledge is therefore the development
of a special quality within the total development of our ideas,
theories and views about things. Many ideas, theories and
viev;s about things have been worked out, often in the most
systematic and logical way, but they have been merely
speculative even if true, and have mostly been quite illusory.
But in the course of the development of ideas there also
occurs a development of knowledge, which is the development
of ideas which not only correspond with reality but whose
correspondence is proved and tested.
Our knowledge, then, is the sum of our conceptions, views
and propositions which have been established and tested as
correct reflections, so far as they go, of objective reality.
The Social Character of Knowledge
Knowledge is essentially a social product. It is built up
socially, as a product of the social activity of men.
Some philosophers give both themselves and their readers a
lot of trouble by trying to trace the growth of knowledge in
the mind of the isolated individual and to find i ts roots in
individual experience. In trying to do this, they set themselves
an insoluble problem, since knowledge is not, and cannot be,
built up in that way. An individual acting alone, cut off from
contact with other people and relying only on himself, could
acquire scarcely any knowledge at all-and that only of par­
ticular facts. Hence some of these philosophers were only
following their own premises through to the logical conclusion
when they announced that a man can know nothing except
his own momentary existence, and certainly not the existence
1 49
of the material world and of other people-though they were
less logical in publishing this conclusion, since on their own
showing they had no reason to believe that there existed
anyone capable of reading it.
Of course, knowledge is built up by individuals-j ust as
everything man creates is created by individuals ; but it is
built up by individuals acting in co-operation, depending on
one another, communicating their experiences and their ideas.
Many individuals in society can do what none of them indi­
vidually could possibly do-and one of these things is to build
up human knowledge. Every individual acquires a great deal
of knowledge from his own experience ; but he would not do
so apart from his association with others, and ifhe did not learn
from others what they had already learned. The very means
for forming and expressing ideas, namely, language, without
which no ideas would be possible, is a social product and
exists only as the common possession of a society. Some
individuals make especially great contributions to building up
new knowledge, while many make no contribution at all ; yet
the former would not have made their contribution if they
had not been members of a particular society, if they were
not in communication with their fellows, if they had not
learned what their society had to teach, if they had not had
at their disposal the numerous material and intellectual means
for acquiring knowledge which their society had produced.
It is, then, only in society that knowledge is acquired and
built up, and its roots lie in the social activities of man. It is
built up by the interchange of experiences and ideas between
members of society in the course of their various forms of
social activity, and it is sifted and tested in the same process.
As a result, the sum of social knowledge...---t hat is, of
knowledge stored and available to society-is always greater
than the knowledge possessed by individuals. Many people
and many generations build up far more knowledge than any
individual can possibly acquire. This knowledge is stored by
society, being distributed in the first place amongst the many
memories of many people, and secondly, being permanently
recorded in writing-so that in this respect books and records
1 50
of various kinds serve as a physical repository of the know­
ledge acquired in society. For instance, no one knows all the
telephone numbers in London, but this knowledge is socially
available and constantly made use of through the telephone
directory. Again, no one knows everything discovered by the
sciences, but the totality of this knowledge is socially available,
and the organisation exists (though i t could be greatly im­
proved) for making use of it. So there exists in society an
accumulation of social knowledge, to which individuals
contribute and which individuals can draw upon.
Social Prnctice and Social Knowledge
All human association arises and develops from man's basic
association in production. The development of knowledge,
therefore, which is a product of human association, depends
in the last analysis upon the development of social production.
Men first began to form ideas in the process of production. And
the development of thought and of knowledge, beginning in
men's productive activity, can at no point be dissociated from it.
In the course of history knowledge has been won and
consolidated step by step. And it is as men have striven to
develop their forces of production, and to reconstitute their
production relations corresponding to the development of
their forces of production, that they have been impelled to
strive for new knowledge and to overcome both the ignorance
and false idea!. which impeded their material progress.
The sum total of knowledge, and its character, at any stage
of social development is always dependent on and relative
to the stage of development of production. For what men
have been able to find out about nature and society alway3
depends on their practical intercourse with nature and with
one another, relates to the practical problems set by that inter­
course, and is tested in the practical solution of those problems.
On this basis they work out the categories of thought, modes
of inference and methods of investigation by means of which
the edifice of knowledge is built.
But while the development of knowledge depends in the
last analysis on the development of production, it does not
151
depend on production alone, but its development is mediated
by the various forms of social activity and relationship which
arise from production. The build-up of knowledge, dependent
on material productive activity, is also dependent, in class
society, on classes and the class struggle. The task of preserving
and enlarging the body of knowledge has in the main devolved
upon the representatives of definite classes. And it has been
largely as a resul t of the activity and struggle-economic,
poli tical, scientific and artistic-of different classes in different
periods that new knowledge, both of nature and of society, has
been won.
Theory and Practice in the Build-up of Knowledge
In general, the acquisition of knowledge in society is some­
thing which arises out of the sum total of the practical
activities of the members of society, their intercourse with
external nature and with one another. Apart from such practi­
cal activities, such active relationships, we could not acquire
knowledge of anything, for there would be no basis on which
to derive ideas which corresponded with objective reality or
to test that correspondence.
Hence Lenin wrote : "The standpoint of life, of practice,
should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge."
(Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 2.)
\Vhat exactly do we mean by "practice" or "practical
activity" ?
( r ) First of all, practice consists of movements of the organs
of the human body which cause changes in the surrounding
world.
(2) But not simply any such movement, any such act, counts
as practice or as practical activity. For instance, we would not
count various simple reflex actions as examples of practice.
Nor would we give the title of practical activity to the actions
of a sleepwalker. Practical activity is essentially human con­
scious activity ; that is to say, it is done deliberately, with (a) an
idea of the end result, or aim, to be achieved, and (b) some
consciousness of the conditions of the action and of the
properties of the subject of the action and of the means through
1 52
which the aim can be achieved.
(3) Thirdly, practice is social . There is, of course, individual
practice-that is, the practical activities carried out by an
individual on his own-and also social practice, activities which
can be carried out only by a number of individuals acting in
association. But no conscious practical activity would develop
apart from man's social life and the condi tioning of individuals
by their society.
In soci ety, people develop many means to their practical
activity. Speech, by which we communicate with one another,
is one of them. Hence a large and important part is played in
our practical activity by speech, for this is certainly an
important means of bringing things about.
The above three points define what we mean by "practice".
Knowledge, then, arises out of practice because it arises
out of the development of ideas corresponding to the various
conditions, subjects and means of our practical activities.
Practice demands such ideas, and they are developed in
accordance with the development of practice. Knowledge is
acqui red just in so far as practice creates the demand for true
ideas about various things, and provides the means and oppor­
tunities for working them out and testing them.
At all times it has been social practice which has impelled
people to develop and perfect their knowledge-the require­
ments of the development of material productive activity, and
no less the requirements of the different classes, who have
experienced the necessity of acquiring ever deeper knowledge
about various aspects of nature and society in order to carry
forward their own practical interests.
Thus as men have improved their instruments of production,
their production technique, their practical ability to master
nature, so has their knowledge of nature advanced. For changes
in production set problems for knowledge and at the same
time provide the means for tackling them. New fields of
knowledge are thus opened up, and new and far-reaching
conclusions reached. These in turn contribute to further
technical advance and are tested, and also further developed,
in their application in practice.
1 53
The capitalist class, in undertaking the development of
modern industry, gave a profound impulse to the deepening
of natural knowledge, particularly of physical and chemical
processes. The working class in turn, in undertaking and
leading the building of socialism, requires and creates the
conditions for far more comprehensive natural knowledge.
Similarly, as men have s triven to improve their well-being
and have succeeded in establishing new and higher social
relations in place of old and outmoded ones, so has their
knowledge of themselves and of society advanced.
The knowledge of the laws of social change embodied in
scientific socialism could be achieved only when, with the
development of the working class, the struggle for socialism
became a practical question. In general, in each historical
epoch the exten t of knowledge of society and i ts laws has always
corresponded to the practical social tasks of the epoch. Thus
capi talism, by the development of the world market and then
the division of the world among imperialist powers, stimulated
studies in world history and in societies at various stages of
their development, which resulted in a tremendous enlarge­
ment of social and historical research. Going beyond this, the
struggle for socialism laid the basis for truly scientific know­
ledge of society, penetrating to the basic social relationships
and laws of social development.
On the other hand, people do not and cannot acquire
knowledge of things about which their practice has not yet
given them the need or opportunity of finding out anything.
For example, while people still lived in small local communes
and used very primitive instruments of production they did
not and could not develop any knowledge of geography, or
mathematics, or astronomy, or mechanics. They knew very
little, though they had all sorts of ideas about things of which
they knew little. Before capi talism and the emergence of the
working class people did not and could not acquire much
knowledge about the laws of development of society. They had
all sorts of ideas about such things, including ideas of socialism,
but very little knowledge.
Knowledge, which arises out of practice, is tested in practice.
1 54
For the correspondence of our ideas about the conditions,
subjects and means of practical activity with the objective
reality independent of our ideas is tested, and can in the last
resort only be tested, by the results of the activity which is
guided by those ideas.
Every act is done with certain expectations, which are based
on the ideas which guide the act. The only final test of the
correspondence of ideas with reality lies in the fulfilment or
non-fulfilment of the expectations based on ideas.
If, on the other hand, we have ideas which are in no way
related to expectations of the results of practice, and which
therefore cannot be tested by reference to the fulfilment or
non-fulfilment of expectations, then there is no way of ever
deciding the correspondence or non-correspondence of such
ideas with reality-in other words, they can form no part of
knowledge, but are merely illusory or speculative.
So Marx wrote : "The question whether objective truth
can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory
but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the
truth, i .e., the reality and power, the 'this-sidedness' of his
thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality [that is,
the correspondence or non-correspondence with reality-M.C.]
of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic
question." ( Theses on Feuerbach, II.)
We gain knowledge, then, by working out ideas arising out
of problems of practice, and we test our knowledge step by step,
in other words, establish it as knowledge, by reference to the
fulfilment or non-fulfilment of our expectations in practice.
Hence knowledge in its development continually passes
through a cycle of three phases :
( I ) Social practice, the development of production and of
social relationships, setting problems for theoretical solution.
(2) The elaboration of theories arising from those problems,
based on the available experiences, and the logical working
out of those theories.
(3) The application of those theories in social practice,
testing, verifying and correcting them in the process of putting
them to use.
155
This is a never-ending process. For whatever may be our
knowledge, new demands of practice lead to new extensions
of knowledge. Moreover, existing knowledge must always be
brought into conformity with the lessons and demands of
practice. Hence as new knowledge is won, old theories are
reformulated, existing knowledge is both corrected and
deepened.
Sense-Perception, the Beginning qf All Knowledge
In this whole process of acquiring and building knowledge,
on what do we have to rely in obtaining information about
things, and in carrying out the test of the fulfilment or non­
fulfilment of expectations ? \Ve have to rely on our senses.
Separating knowledge from practice, many philosophers
have also maintained that knowledge is built up by a process of
"pure thought". The senses, they say, are unreliable, and
cannot be a source of knowledge, to gain which we should
ignore the data of sense and rely on the intellect alone.
Yet human knowledge, capable as it is of indefinite expan­
sion, is always the work of the human brain. The brain is the
organ of the most complicated relations of man with the
external world, and in elaborating these relationships we are
dependent, in the first place, on the information received
through the senses as a result of our interaction with the things
outside us. The beginning of all our knowledge, then, can be
nothing else than the sense perceptions we acquire in the course
of life activity. Knowledge can be built on no other basis than
the information gained through the exercise of our senses,
through sense perceptions which have their source in the
objective material world.
This materialist point of view in the theory of knowledge
was embodied in Lenin's well-known definition of matter, as
"thr. objective reality which is given to man by his sensations,
and which is reflected by our sensations while existing inde­
pendently of them". (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
chapter 2 . ) This emphasises that the material world is the
world accessible to the senses. 'What we know about the mater­
ial world is derived from the exercise of our senses. Any
1 56
supposed knowledge which goes beyond that is not knowledge
but fantasy, and any supposed objective reality inaccessible to
the senses is not real but imaginary.
It may be objected that these are dogmatic statements. But
there is no dogma here. On the contrary, once we get away
from this fundamental materialist position we get away from
all verifiable knowledge and into the realms of pure specula­
tion. Once we allow ourselves to start inventing "realities"
which cannot in any way be detected by the instrumentality of
the senses, we are away into the clouds. We are faced with the
sort of questions the later scholastics used to ask : "How many
angels can stand on the point of a needle ?" There is no
possible way of detecting them, and so of checking the answer
to the question. That is why we can be sure that such questions
and such speculations have nothing whatever to do with
knowledge, and arc simply ways of bamboozling people.
I ndeed, to say we gain knowledge only through the exercise
of the senses in the course of practical activity is no more a
dogma than to say we cannot live without eating. To promise
people "supersensible" or "transcendent" knowledge is like
promising them the means of eternal life while offering them
nothing to eat-and the promises are often made by the same
learned and pious people. The materialist theory of knowledge
is a defence and weapon against such decep tions.
Hence we should steadily reject all "principles" and dogmas
which claim to be known independent of experience, indepen­
dent of the exercise of the senses, whether by some inner light or
by virtue of some authority. vVe should not trust those who
seek to impose their views because they claim to possess some
special intellectual gift, or to have been initiated into some
mystery, or to be empowered with some special authority. We
should be sceptical, and accept nothing from anyone which
cannot be explained and justified in terms of practice and sense
experience. For we cannot know of the existence or properties
of anything except in so far as its existence and properties are
capable of being detected, in some way, directly or indirectly,
by our senses.
1 57
The Reliability of the Senses
But can we trust our senses ? How do we know that our senses
do not always deceive us, as they sometimes do in hallucina­
tions and dreams ? More generally, how do we know t ha t
anything at all exists corresponding to our perceptions ?
To answer these questions we must remember that we acquire
and build up our perceptions of objects only in the course of
practical activity. The information which we gain through the
senses does not just come to us. \Ve get it in practical life, by
conscious, practical interaction with the objects outside us.
A new-born baby, for example, starts with a mass of confused
impressions of itself and the outside world. I t begins to use
its senses and to get information about the objects which
surround it when it begins to reach out for those obj ects, to
see what it can do with them, to investigate them, to experi­
ment with and tes t them in all sorts of ways.
Just as each member of the human race starts getting
information about the world in that way, so that is the way
in which all knowledge about the world is acquired and built
up. Our first confused impressions of an unfamiliar thing are
certainly not reliable and provide little if any information
about it. \Ve use our senses to obtain information about it by
investigating it. And we continually test the reliability of our
perceptions of it in the course of our practical dealings with it.
Apart from such practical dealings with things outside us,
we have no way of telling whether our perceptions agree with
objects or, indeed, whether any object at all corresponds to
them. But when we act on our perceptions, and when we turn
things to our own use according to the qualities we perceive
in them, then we test whether or not, and how far, our
perceptions agree with reality outside ourselves.
A philosopher sitting alone in his study and trying to conjure
up knowledge from the inner resources of his own mind may
make great difficulty about this. He wonders whether his study,
his books, the chair he is sitting on, and his own body sitting
on it, really exist, or whether they are some kind of dream
or illusion in his mind. But outside his study, outside the
academic discussions of philosophers, there is no difficulty.
1 58
"Human action had solved the difficulty long before human
ingenuity invented it", wrote Engels. "The proof of the
pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our
own use these objects according to the qualities we perceive
in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise
of our sense perceptions. If these perceptions have been wrong,
then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned
must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But if we suc­
ceed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that the object does
agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we
intended for it, then that is positive proof that our perceptions
of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside our­
selves . . . . So long as we take care to train and use our senses
properly, and to keep our action within the limits prescribed
by perceptions properly made and properly used, so long we
shall find that the result of our action proves the conformity
of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things
perceived." (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Introduction. )
The material world exists, and w e are part o f i t . W e learn
about the bodies outside us and about the state of our own
bodies by our senses. So naturally we have no othe � way of
finding out about the world-that is, of gaining knowledge­
than through the exercise of our senses. Nor can our senses
be so constituted as always or even usually to deceive us. If
they were, we would not be able to live at all.
"The products of the human brain," wrote Engels, "being
in the last analysis also products of nature, do not contradict
the rest of nature but are in correspondence with it." (Anti­
Dii.hring, Part I, chapter 3 .) Our senses are necessarily so
constituted as to provide us with perceptions which agree with
reality outside ourselves. These perceptions, which are the
beginning of all our knowledge, are gained in the course of
practical activity, and their agreement with reality is brought
about and tested in practical activity.
So all our knowledge-that is to say, the sum of our con­
ceptions which are established and tested as correct reflections
so far as they go, of obj ective reality-is established on the
basis of the perceptions we gain in our practical activity, and
1 59
is likewise tested in the same activity.
The Expansion, Incompleteness and Criticism of Knowtedge
Some philosophers have believed that the goal of knowledge
is to attain a complete, rounded-off system, encompassing
knowledge of everything that exists to be known. And a few
have believed that they themselves had actually attained such a
goal-as was alleged of the late Master of Balliol, Professor
B. Jowett :
Here I stand, my name is Jowett,
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am Master of this College,
And what I don't know isn't knowledge.
Yet neither as a whole nor in any of its various departments
can human knowl edge ever be finished, finalised and rounded­
off. Knowledge is always growing and developing. Indeed, this
is obvious when we consider tha t our knowledge all arises from
and is tested in practice, and is derived from the sense per­
ceptions we gain in practical activity. \Ale shall never have
done everything that can be done, or have examined every
aspect of everything that ever existed, exists or will exist. There
will always be more to do, more to find out in doing it, and
therefore more to know.
So knowledge is always expanding, or, at least, capable of
expansion ; and therefore always incomplete. And there are
two aspects of this expansion and incompleteness of knowl edge.
The first aspect is a quantitative one. New knowledge is
always being added to old knowledge, so that we come to know
more. And this expansion takes place in two dimensions, so
to speak-in breadth and depth of knowledge. We get to know
about new things which we did not know about before ; and
we get to know more about the things concerning which we
already knew something. In this way we can always know
more, but never know all.
For example, in modern physics we have got to know about
"fundamental particles" the existence of which was not
previously known ; and in getting to know about them, we
have also increased or deepened our knowledge about atoms
1 60
and their structure, concerning which something was already
known. But because we have in this way increased the breadth
and depth of our physical knowledge, we cannot conclude that
we have completed our physical knowledge. On the contrary,
all we should conclude is that while we have more physical
knowledge than our predecessors, our successors, starting where
we leave off, will have more still.
The second aspect is a qualitative one. When we get to know
more, the addition of this more to what we already knew does
not leave what we already knew unaffected. On the contrary,
knowledge of new things and more knowledge of old things
throws a new light, so to speak, on what we already knew. As a
result, we can find new implications and new significance in
what we had already established ; and at the same time we
find that, in the light of the new knowledge, certain implica­
tions drawn from the old were wrong, and it must be
reconsidered and reformulated in various ways.
For example, new discoveries in physics which were summed
up in quantum mechanics cast a new light on the older dis­
coveries in physics which were summed up in classical
mechanics. As a result, the old knowledge had to be recon­
sidered and reformulated in various ways, and it became clear
that some of the conclusions drawn from it were wrong. Again,
when in the practice of building socialism in one country, the
Soviet Union, new knowledge was gained about the nature
and functions of the socialist state, it became necessary to
reconsider and reformulate some of the propositions about the
socialist state previously put fonvard by Marxism, and it
became clear that some of the conclusions drawn from it were
wrong.
None of this means that old knowledge turns out to have
been illusory and so not to have been real knowledge at all. All
it means is that the incompleteness of old knowledge leads to
the necessity of its being critically reformulated in the light
of new knowledge. And the same will apply, of course, to the
new knowledge itself, when it in turn becomes old knowledge.
Knowledge grows through a process of not only adding to
but also perfecting and correcting the already existing body of
161
knowledge. In no field is knowledge ever perfect, final and
complete. Consequently, whatever knowledge has been estab­
lished must be accepted only as a point of departure for further
advances of knowledge-just as whatever has been achieved in
practice should not be regarded as a final achievement but
only as a point of departure for further gains. This means
that we must also be prepared to recognise that all knowledge
is always limited, incomplete, defective, and so requires not
only supplementation but also criticism in order to carry it
forward and advance to new conquests.
Chapter Twelve
THE GROWTH O F KNOWLED GE
From Ignorance to Knowledge
HE acquisition of knowledge, and the build-up of know­
ledge, is by its very nature always a process of the passage
from ignorance to knowledge, from not knowing things to
knowing them. Whether we consider our knowledge in general,
or our knowledge of some particular thing, it is always the
case that first we knew nothing and then gradually acquired
knowledge.
Hence in his Encyclopaedia article on Karl lvlarx Lenin
wrote that the theory of knowledge must study "the transi­
tion from non-knowledge to knowledge". "We must not
regard our knowledge as ready made' ', he wrote, " . . . but
must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how
incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and
more exact." (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 2 . )
Many philosophers, on the other hand, have taken it for
granted that knowledge can only be derived from previous
knowledge. Therefore they have supposed that there must be
fundamental certainties, from which all knowledge is derived .
This leads them to two opposite but equally misleading con­
clusions. On the one hand, they invent vari.ous principles
which they say are certain, and then claim that they know
and have proved all the propositions deduced from these
principles. On the other hand, they deny a great part of our
real knowledge, because it cannot be so deduced. Thus, for
example, philosophers have deduced all manner of conclusions
about God and the ultimate nature of reality from first
principles ; and on the other hand, they have rejected the
1 63
T
whole of our knowledge about the material world on the
grounds that it cannot be justified by anything they are
prepared to accept as absolutely certain and self-evident.
Yet the real starting point of knowledge is not knowledge
but ignorance, and not certainty hut uncertainty. We always
build up knowledge from a previous state oflack of knowledge.
Hence to try to build up systems of knowledge from self­
evident premises is to misunderstand the whole problem of
building knowledge, and must always be in vain.
How, then, is knowledge built up from ignorance ? This is
done, and can only be done, through our sensuous interaction
with things. It is done by human brains, which, as we have
repeatedly said, are the organs of the most complicated rela­
tions between man and the external world. By the perceptual
awareness of things which results from entering into various
active relations with them, we come to know them where
previously we did not know them. And the more various the
relations with things into which we enter, the more do we
consequently get to know about them. Hence knowledge is the
product of our consciously entering into active relations with
things. The transition from lack of knowledge to knowledge is
wrought by human activity passing from lack of relation with
things to relation with things.
For instance, we did not know the source of the Nile ; we
got to know it by going there. We did not know the composi­
tion of atoms ; we got to know it by performing experiments.
\Ve did not know the distances of the stars ; we got to know by
devising methods of measuring them. We did not know the
laws of development of human society ; we got to know by
consciously striving to utilise them for bringing about a new
stage of social development.
Perceptions and Judgments
The first requisite for the build-up of knowledge is obtaining
perceptions-that is, making observations arising out of
various relationships with things. First we had no obscr\"ations
relative to some thing or process, then we obtained such
observations ; this is the first step. \Vithout performing it,
1 64
there can only be ignorance, not knowledge-either blank
ignorance or else, as often happens, ignorance camouflaged
by illusory or speculative theories about things.
Secondly, having entered into relationship with things and
obtalned observations about them, we must go on to formulate
judgments or propositions about them and their properties and
relations. \Ve must employ the laws of thought-that is, the
logical laws for the reflection of objective reality in terms of
ideas-in order to express in ideas, in judgments or proposi­
tions, the results of observations.
The build-up of knowledge always involves the passage from
sensations to ideas. All the higher animals have sensations, and
in their sensations possess definite, concrete information about
things, which they learn to make more reliable and which
they use in their life activity. But only in man is this informa­
tion provided by the senses converted into knowledge, in the
sense of being expressed in ideas and propositions.
Here we understand the term "knowledge" in the definite
sense of human knowledge. The sense in which, for example, a
dog knows the way home is different from the sense in which
a man knows the way, for in the latter case it is expressible in
ideas and propositions which can be communicated. Ideas
and propositions are communicated, shared and discussed by
people in their social life, and it is this expression of informa­
tion in ideas and propositions which constitutes the essential
feature of human knowledge. People acquire and possess
knowledge just in so far as they pass from the sensations which
are particular to each individual and which they possess in
common with all animals, to the ideas, j udgments, propositions
which are socially communicated and are peculiar to man.
Perception by itself, then, is only the condition of knowledge,
but not as yet its realisation. The knowledge of things possessed
by man is achieved by passing from sensations to judgments
founded on sensations.
Thus knowledge is always being built up by a continual
cycle of qualitatively distinct activities which together make
up the whole process of knowing-entering into active rela­
tionships with things ; obtaining from this relationship
1 65
perceptions and observations ; formuiating j udgments out of
the observations ; utilising these judgments to direct the further
active relationships with things, leading to further observations,
further j udgments, and so on without end.
From Superficial to More Profound Judgments
Sense perception reproduces things as they immediately
appear through their action on our sense organs. The senses
give only particular pieces of information about particular
things conditioned by the particular circumstances under
which we are perceiving them.
By expressing the information obtained from perception in
propositions people arrive a t judgments expressing conclusions
from the comparison and putting together of many particular
data of perception. "The first step in the process of know­
ledge," wrote Mao Tse-tung in his essay 011 Practice, in which
he summed up the essentials of the materialist theory of
knowledge, "is contact with the things of the external world ;
this belongs to the stage of perception. The second s tep is a
synthesis of the data of perception by making a rearrange­
ment or reconstruction ; this belongs to the stage of conception,
j udgment and inference."
For example, from many perceptions of many members of
society we reach such conclusions (all of which represent
elementary items of social knowledge) as "dogs bark", "cows
give milk", "water turns into ice in cold weather", and so on.
Such judgments are, as Mao expressed it, "a synthesis of the
data of perception".
To form such judgments about things depends not on a
single observation by a single person but on several or many
observations by several or many people. And the more various
the observations, the more various the circumstances in which
and the angles from which they are made, and the more various
the changes and relationships of the obj ect which they cover,
the more comprehensively and fai thfully can the j udgment
reflect the objective properties, relations and forms of motion
of the obj ect.
Observation is itself an activity, since we must consciously
1 66
bring ourselves into relation with something if we are to
observe it, and must bring ourselves into more varied relation
-noting various different aspects of the thing, i ts various
changes, and so on--if we are to observe it more fully. But
observation itself passes from what may be called passive
observation to active observation, and it is the latter which is
of primary importance for building up fuller knowledge of
things.
Observation in itself does not change that which is observed.
In this sense, it is passive. A bird-watcher, for example, obtains
knowledge about birds, but he does not interfere with them in
any way in making his observations ; on the contrary, in this
case he must be very careful not to do so. Active observation
arises when we ourselves, by our activity, take a part in bring­
ing about various changes in things, and observe the results of
the relationships or changes which we ourselves have effected
under our own control.
One of the most important methods of active obsen;ation
of things is, for example, to measure them. The process of
measurement, whatever it may be we are measuring, involves
bringing one thing into relationship with another thing and
noting the results. Other methods of active observation are, for
example, to break something down into its parts or elements
and then to reconstitute it again, or to effect changes in its
properties through the agency of other things. In general, by
elaborating methods of active observation suitable to the
different things we want to know about and what we want to
know about them, we obtain many significant observations,
leading us to conclusions about their properties, relations,
motions, laws of motion, causes and effects, composition, and
so on.
Having acquired, through both passive and active observa­
tions and their, translation into judgments, a certain body of
knowledge expressed in judgments, we can then make use of
this knowledge in order to obtain more knowledge. For it will
suggest new fields of exploration and methods for establishing
new relationships with things. Knowledge already built up is
utilised for the direction of more activity and the obtaining
1 67
out of it of more observations. By this means, the knowledge
already built up is further tested and corrected, and the whole
build-up of knowledge is continued.
The process of passing from observation to judgment, and
then from more active and comprehensive observation to more
comprehensive judgment, brings about, in the first place, a
correction of immediate conclusions based on insufficient
observation.
Ordinary experience already teaches us that there is a
difference between the first appearance of things in sense­
perception and their reality. For it often happens that things
turn out to be different from what they at first appear to be,
and this is shown in practice by the non-realisation of expecta·
tions based on first appearances. In the process of building up
knowledge we are always passing from conclusions which
express only the apparent properties, relations and motions of
things to conclusions which �pproximate more fully to things
as they really are.
For example, when we perceive the sun it looks a relatively
small body-and for a long time people concluded that it was
in fact quite small. But we have come to know that the sun
is in fact very big. Again, the sun looks as if it goes round the
earth-and for a long time people concluded that it did in
fact go round the earth. But we have come to know that it is
the earth which really goes round the sun.
In the second place, in the process of forming more compre­
hensive judgmen ts about things we pass from fragmentary
knowledge of particular things, with their particular proper·
ties, relations and motions, to more connected knowledge of
their laws of existence, change and interconnections.
The first knowledge which is based on the first observations
of things is knowledge of a number of facts about those things,
but not of the laws of their existence and the interconnections
between them which manifest themselves in and determine
those facts. At the same time, therefore, as we correct the
conclusions based on the first appearance of things and form
judgments about their real properties, relations and motions
which give rise to the appearances, we also form judgments
1 68
about the general laws and interconnections which are mani­
fested in the particular properties, motions and relations of
things first evident to observation.
For example, having established the main facts abou t the
solar system-that the planets, of which the earth is one, go
round the sun-we also establish the laws which are mani­
fested in the system and by the operation of which it exists
and remains in being.
Again, knowing from common experience that water turns
into ice when it grows cold enough, we go on to establish­
as a result of the synthesis of, and inferences drawn from,
many special observations-the reasons for this phenomenon,
namely, that it is due to a rearrangement of the molecules
caused by changes in their motion when the temperature is
lowered.
Thus in the process of passing from observation to judgment
we also succeed in passing from superficial to more profound
judgments-from judgments which simply state what we have
observed to judgments which go further, and draw conclusions
about the composition and internal organisation of things,
about their causes and effects, interactions, interconnections
and motions, and laws of interconnection and motion.
This is a qualitative change in the content of judgments ; a
passing from j udgments of superficial content to judgments o�
a more profound content; from judgments in terms of elemen­
tary ideas to which correspond objects directly perceptible to
the senses, to judgments in terms of abstract ideas, which state
the causes, reasons, explanations, effects and laws of the
things we observe.
From Superficial to Deeper Knowledge
We can conclude that knowledge in general is realised only
by passing from perception to judgment, and that then the
process of developing the knowledge expressed in judgments,
of extending and deepening it, passes through two qualita­
tively distinct stages-first, the superficial and fragmentary
knowledge of things directly derived from perceptions of them ;
and second, knowledge of their essential properties, inter1 69
connections and laws.
In the first stage, our judgments express merely what Mao
Tse-tung called "the separate aspects of things, the external
relations between such things". In the second stage, we arrive
at judgments which, as he expressed it, "no longer represent
the appearances of things, their separate aspects, or their ex­
ternal relations, but embrace their essence, their totality and
their internal relations".
The passage from the first stage to the second stage involves,
in the first place, active observation. Without active observa­
tion, the data on which to found more profound and compre­
hensive judgments will be lacking, and any judgments which
may be made can only be speculative or illusory.
In the second place, however, it involves a process of
thought arising from observation-a process of the sifting and
comparison of observations, of generalisation and formation of
abstract ideas, of reasoning and drawing conclusions from such
s:;eneralisation and abstraction. Having reached conclusions,
they must be again checked with active observation, in order
to ensure that they accord with it and that the abstract
generalisations reached by thought do express the concrete
facts given in perception. The passage from the first stage to
the second stage therefore involves a passage from judgments
which directly express the data of perception, to j udgments
which are derived from the data of perception through a
process of abstraction and generalisation.
The passage from the judgment that the sun is hot to the
j udgment that its surface temperature is about 6,ooo degrees
Centigrade represents, for example, such a passage of know­
ledge from the first to the second stage. The judgment tha t
the sun is hot directly expresses one way in which the sun
affects our senses. But the judgment about its temperature
involves, first, that we have formed the abstract idea of
temperature, and second, that with the aid of this idea we
have reached concl usions about the sun's temperature by an
elaborate process of active observation and reasoning based on
it. As a result we pass from a judgment which merely expresses
certain observations about the sun, to one which expresses its
1 70
internal state.
Again, suppose that we are considering the state organisa­
tion of a given country, of Great Britain, let us say. The first
observations which may be made concern particular facts­
such as that the capital is London, that laws are made by
people sitting in two Houses of Parliament, that these laws
are signed by the Queen and enforced by policemen, and so
on. Many inquiries into the character of British parli amentary
democracy never get further than formulating the judgments
summarising such observations, which means that they go no
further than the first stage of knowledge. If, however, inquiry
is carried further, if the state is considered in i ts historical
development on the basis of the whole development of the
economic structure of society, and if reasoned conclusions are
drawn from this inquiry, then we will arrive at the judgment
that the British parliamentary state is the organ of rule of the
British capitalist class. This is to advance knowledge of the
state to the second stage, which embraces not merely a number
of observed facts about it but its essential nature.
In his work on the theory of knowledge (On Practice) , Mao
Tse-tung wrote that in the first stage knowledge is confined to
" the separate aspects of things, the appearances, the external
relations of things", whereas in the second stage it "takes a
big stride forward to embrace the wholeness, the essence and
internal relations of things, discloses the internal contradic­
tions of the surrounding world, and is therefore capable of
grasping the development of the surrounding world in its
totality, in the internal relations between all its aspects".
Many philosophers (those belonging to the so-called
"empiricist" and "positivist" schools) have denied that
knowledge develops through two such stages. According to
them, first we obtain various "sense data", and then we
compare and relate these data in order to formulate judgments
or propositions summarising the observations. And for them,
that is the whole process of knowledge. Hence, for them,
knowledge is entirely confined to " the separate aspects of
things, the appearances, the external relations of things'', and
it is an illusion to suppose that there can be any more profound
171
knowledge of things-of their reality as opposed to their
appearance to us, of their essential properties, interconnections
and laws.
In opposition to this empiricist or positivist type of philos­
ophy, Marxism traces the growth of knowledge from a lower
to a higher stage. First of all, in obtaining information through
the senses we pass from sensations to judgments ; and then, in
the development of our knowledge expressed in ideas and
judgments, we pass from superficial knowledge of the appear­
ances and external relations of things to deeper knowledge of
their essential characteristics and internal relations.
Appearance and Reality
In passing from elementary to abstract ideas, from superficial
to more profound judgments, the passage is made from the
appearance of things to their reality. In considering know­
ledge, a distinction must always be made between appearance
and reality-between the particular phenomena which are
i mmediately evident to observation and the hidden processes,
interconnections and laws which are manifested in the appear­
ances and underlie the observed facts. The task of knowing
things is always to advance from appearance to reality, so as
to get to know more about the real movement and inter­
connections of things manifested in their particular existence
and mode of appearance.
Thus Marx stressed that the task of science is always to
proceed from the immediate knowledge of appearances to the
discovery of the reality, the internal connections and laws
underlying the appearances, and so finally to reach a compre­
hensive understanding of the appearances.
Inquiry, he wrote, "has to appropriate the material i n
detail , t o analyse its different forms o f development, t o trace
out their inner connections. Only after this work is done can
the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done
successfully . . . the life of the subject matter is ideally reflected
as in a mirror." (Capital, Preface to second edition.)
So Marx stressed that knowledge of the real character and
laws of any subject-matter must always be derived from a
1 72
detailed analysis of all the relevant facts, and must in turn
serve to explain them-to demonstrate their inner connections
and actual movement.
His own work in the social sciences provides examples of
this point. Thus in Capital Marx pointed out that whereas the
"vulgar economists" dealt only with the surface appearances
of capitalist economy, scientific political economy seeks to
uncover the real relations of production underlying the
appearances, and on that basis explain the appearances. If
the underlying processes had been evident on the surface to
superficial observation, there would have been no need for
further profound inquiry. But the reality is never evident on
the surface, and can be discovered only by painstaking
scientific analysis.
"The way of thinking of the vulgar economists", wrote
Marx, "derives from the fact that it is always only the imme·
diate form in which relationships appear which is reflected in
the brain, and not their inner connections. If the latter were
the case, moreover, what would be the need for a science at
all ?" And explaining his own method of scientific analysis of
capitalist economy, he pointed out that at the end of it, "we
have arrived at the forms of appearance which serve as the
starting point for the vulgar : ground rent coming from the
earth, profit (interest) from capital, and wages from labour.
But from our point of view the thing is now seen differently.
The apparent movement is explained." (Letters to Engels,
June 271 1 867, and April 30, 1 858.)
It is clear from this, incidentally, that the positivist philos·
ophy, which confines knowledge entirely to dealing with
surface appearances, was completely in accord with the pro·
cedures of the "vulgar economists" whom Marx criticised, and
their procedures were completely in accord with it. This
philosophy, indeed, is the most suitable philosophy for the
apologists of capitalism, whose whole outlook depends on their
never looking below the surface of social life.
As a vivid example of the importance ofjudging things, not
from superficial appearances but from the point of view of
their inner relationships and connections, we could take the
1 73
case of wages. If we j udge only from external appearances,
then wages are simply payment for work. A man works so
many hours and is paid so much per hour. In that case, we
could perceive no difference between wages in, say, capitalist
society and in socialist society. \Vhether he works in a capitalist
or a socialist factory, a man works so many hours and gets
paid so much. What is the difference ? The difference is that
the external form of wages expre5ses different s0cial relations.
In capitalist society, wages are the price of the worker's
labour-power, which he has sold to the capi talist. In socialist
society, wages are no longer the price of labour-power, since
the factories belong to the working people, who do not sell
their labour-power to themselves. ·wages now express the
allocation to the worker of a definite share of the values he
has produced according to the work he has contributed. So
while in capitalist society the workers can maintain or raise
their wages only by fighting the capi talist class and threatening
to s trike, in socialist society they continually raise their stan­
dards by increasing production. In other words, the laws
which determine wages are totally different in socialist from
capitalist society. But why they are different can only be
understood when we go behind the appearances of things and
seek to discover the inner relationships and connections which
determine the appearances.
Revolutionary Theor_y and Revolutionary Practice
To pass from superficial to profound j udgment about things,
and from their appearance to their reality, is, as we have said,
to pass from one stage of knowing things to another. Such a
quali tative change in knowledge is also as a rule a revolution­
ary change. It is revolutionary because it brings about a
revolu tionary change in what we can do.
When practice is guided only by what we have learned
concerning the external appearance of things, then i t lacks
the power of knowingly bringing about profound changes in
those things, or of u tilising them extensively for far-reaching
purposes. On the contrary, when we know things only by their
appearances we generally have in practice to wait on what
1 74
happens, to adapt ourselves to things-often badly and suffer­
ing surprises, set-backs and misfortunes-rather than mastering
them and adapting them to purposes of our own .
But when we begin to grasp the reality which determines
the appearances, then we can deal with things more effectively,
bring about profound changes in them and utilise them for
our own purposes.
For example, up to modern times people had only superficial
knowledge of chemical processes, and so there could be little
effectively planned use of these processes in production. But
modern chemistry enables us to break substances down and
bring them into being again from their constituents, so that
many materials can be made by synthetic methods, with
properties to suit our own requirements. We can split atoms,
break down one element into others and u tilise the energy
produced in the process, and even create new man-made
elements, such as plutonium.
Again, the utopian socialists and the old working-class
movement could not effectively change society. But Marxist
theory, which penetrates to the reality of social processes, has
enabled the working-class movement thoroughly to transform
society in some countries and to begin to build socialism.
Whether we conside:- knowledge of nature or of society,
whenever knowledge has been raised to knowledge of reality
and not only of appearance, then this has been a revolutionary
development, a revolution in what people can do.
Such profound advances in knowledge-whether they have
been consciously linked with practice or not by those who
played the major theoretical part in effecting them-are
always in the last analysis the products of revolutionary
strivings in social practice. It is when people strive to do some­
tlll ng new so as to increase their powers and improve their
conditions, that they experience the necessity of deepening
their knowledge. There can be no revolutionary practice
without knowledge, for without knowledge it lacks direction
and cannot attain its goal. A leap forward in knowledge is a
condition for the realisation of a revolution in practice.
And it is impossible to raise the level of knowledge apart
1 75
from or in advance of the corresponding practice, just as
practice gropes in the dark without the necessary knowledge.
Apart from the appropriate practice no genuine knowledge is
possible, but only guesswork and speculation. All genuine
knowledge arises out of practice, and in turn is tested in
practice-though this does not mean that the theoretical
deductions from a discovery may not advance beyond the
carryin g into effect of all its potential practical consequences.
There is no other way to discover the laws of the real world
than the way of entering into practical relations with real
objects and processes, striving to master and change them;
forming concepts on the basis of the experiences gained, and
then testing the theoretical conclusions once more in living
practice.
Things in Themselves
It follows from this analysis of the growth of knowledge that,
in all its stages, it is the growth of the faithful reflection in
human consciousness of the objective world.
Many philosophers have maintained that our knowledge is
limited to the appearances of things in our own minds, and
that "things in themselves", things as they really are "in
themselves" and independently of how they appear to us,
must be unknowable. According to such philosophers there is
an impassable gulf between the data of sense given in our
consciousness on the one hand and the things existing inde­
pendently of our consciousness, things in themselves, on the
other hand. And many not only deny that we can know things
in themselves but also that such things exist at all.
And yet already in judgments directly based on perception
we are gaining knowledge of things in themselves-not in the
first place complete or profound knowledge but knowledge at
least of various separate aspects and external relations of
things. We gain this knowledge precisely by means of the data
of sense. And when by further investigations and reasoning we
reach conclusions about the relations of things, their properties,
the processes into which they enter and their laws of motion,
then we are gaining deeper knowledge of the very same things,
1 76
existing in dependently of our consciousness of them, which
before we knew only superficially.
There is, then, no gulf between things in themselves and
their appearances or "phenomena". We know things precisely
by means of their appearances to us, and the more we study
the appearances the more we can find out about the things.
Nor is there any gulf between the appearances of things and
their reality, since the appearance is a manifestation of the
reality, and we do not know the reality separately from the
appearance but only through it. "If you know all the qualities
of a thing, you know the thing itself", wrote Engels in the
Introduction to Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. We know about
the real properties and relations of things by practice and
study. By finding out what we can do with things, and by
studying the various appearances of their various aspects under
many co'lditions, we gain more and more knowledge of the
things themscl\'es.
Hence all our knowledge is knowledge of real things which
certainly exist independen tly of their appearances to us. "The
materialist affirms the existence and knowability of things in
themselves", wrote Lenin, in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
chapter 2 . First we know things superficially through percep­
tion, and then more deeply and comprehensively by thought
operating with the data of perception. There is, and can be,
no difference between the things known to us and things in
themselves. The only difference is between what is known and
what is not yet known, and between what is known only
superficially in certain of its aspects and what is known more
thoroughly.
Overcoming the Limits of Knowledge
Are there, then, limits to human knowledge ?
At any particular stage in the development of humanity
knowledge comes up against limits set by the necessarily limited
character of the experience available and of the existing means
of obtaining knowledge.
But humanity advances by overcoming such limits. New
experience throws down the limits of old experience ; new
1 77
techniques, new means of obtaining knowledge throw down
the limits of old techniques and old means of ob taining
knowledge.
New limits then once again appear. But there is no more
reason to suppose these new limits absolute and final than
there was to suppose the old ones absolute and final. At every
stage there are people who think that the limit has been
reached and who look no further. But there are always, sooner
or later, other people who throw down those limits and boldly
advance beyond them to new limits.
Therefore knowledge is always limited, and advances by
overcoming existing limits.
For example, it was impossible for people in feudal society
to know anything about socialist society and its laws, to
formulate the truth about socialism and the tramition from
socialism to communism. This became possible only with the
development of capitalist society ; only then did the means
b ecome available for forming a scientific conception of
socialism. Similarly it is impossible for us today to know how
a fully communist society, after it is established, will further
develop ; but in due course people will be able to ascertain
the truth about this further development and its laws.
Again, it was impossible to gain knowledge of the atom and
its structure before the invention of modern techniques of
electronics. Today with these techniques we have passed what
were once thought to be the limits of all possible physical
knowledge. These techniques themselves involve, however,
their own limits to physical knowledge-so that now some
physicists assert the impossibility of ever knowing anything
more about sub-atomic processes than is allowed for in
contemporary quantum theory. But it would be both dog­
matic and short-sighted to assert that these limits are any
more absolute than were the once insurmountable limits of
o ther techniques in the past. "While yesterday the profundity
of this knowledge did not go beyond the atom, and today
does not go beyond the electron," wrote Lenin, "
dialec­
tical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approxi­
mate character of all these milestones in the knowledge of
.
1 78
•
.
nature gained by the progressing science of man. The electron
is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite .
. " (Material­
ism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 5.)
At every stage and in all circumstances knowledge is
incomplete and provisional, conditioned and limited by the
historical circumstances under which it was acquired, includ­
ing the means and methods used for gaining it and the
historically conditioned assumptions and categories used in
the formulation of ideas and conclusions.
But this development of knowledge, every stage of which
has such a conditioned character, is a development of know­
ledge of the real material world, the discovery of interconnec­
tions and laws of motion of real material processes, including
human society and human consciousness. It is a progressive
development, in which the bounds of knowledge are stage by
stage enlarged, in which the agreement of ideas and theories
with objective reality is stage by stage increased, and in which
stage by stage what was provisional and hypothetical gives
place to what is assured and verified.
The progress of knowledge always comes up against barriers
which arise from the limitations of existing knowledge and
i::xisting practice. But while the progress of knowledge always
faces barriers to further advance, knowledge progresses by
finding how to get over them.
.
1 79
.
Chapter Thirteen
N E C E S S I TY AND F R E E D O M
HEN
Necessity and Accident
knowlt>dge advances to the stage of knowledge
of the laws of motion and interconnection which
determine the appearances of things, then we begin to under­
stand the aspect of necessity which belongs to phenomena of
both nature and society.
We call that necessary which from the nature of the case
could not be otherwise. When the real processes which deter­
mine the mode of existence of a thing are such that it is bound
to manifest certain characteristics and not others, and to
develop in a certain way and not in another, then those
characteristics and that development are understood as
necessary.
In general, in so far as we gain knowledge of the inner con­
nections and laws of development of things, we are able to
state not merely what the facts are but to explain them, to
understand the reasons for them, to comprehend their
necessity.
In the field of natural science, for example, the discoveries
of Newton concerning the principles of mechanics revealed
the necessity of many phenomena of nature. Thus among
other things Newton's principles demonstrated the necessity
of certain features of the solar system of which the earth is a
part. It is a fact, for instance, that the planets move round the
sun in elliptical orbits. This fact was established by Kepler.
But the necessity of Kepler's law of planetary motion was
demonstrated by Newton, whose analysis of the mechanics of
the solar system showed th:it from the very nature of the forces
W
1 80
operating in such a system the planets were bound to move
in elliptical orbits, and not in circles or any other kind of orbit.
Thus the gen eral character of the solar system is not accidental
-i t is a necessary consequence of the nature of such 3
:;ystem, of its inner connection and laws of development.
Again, to take an example from social life, it is a fact that in
Britain the police always intervene in indus trial disputes on
the side of the employers. From the point of view of superficial
observation, this is merely a fact. But yet it is not accidental.
For once we have grasped the nature of the contemporary
British State as a capitalist state, then we can understand that
if the police help the employers this is no accident but a
necessary consequence of the capitalist regime.
If, however, we come to understand the necessity of certain
aspects of things, and of certain types of events, this does not
mean that everythin g is understood as necessary, that there
is no place left in the world for accident. On the contrary,
particular events always have a chance or accidental character.
The recognition of necessity in things is inseparable from the
recognition at the same time of accident.
For example, the police in a capitalist state necessarily serve
the capitalist class. But they do not necessarily wear blue
uniforms. On the contrary, they could serve the capitalists j ust
as well in uniforms of some other colour ; and so the fact that
the British police wear blue uniforms is an accident-it is due
to accidental circumstances.
Similarly, while i t is a necessary feature of the solar system
that the earth moves round the sun in an elliptical orbit, i t
is not a necessary feature that the earth i s the exact size i t is :
i ts exact size is due to accidental circumstances.
From the point of view of superficial observation, everything
appears accidental . \Ve are simply confronted with observed
facts and external connections between them. As we have not
yet grasped the l aws of change and interconnection which
govern and manifest themselves in the things we are observing,
every fact we observe is apprehended simply as a fact which
could quite well have been otherwise. "Every fact could be
the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the
181
same" (L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1 . 2 1 ) :
such is the conclusion of a superficial way of viewing things.
But profounder investigation reveals that "where on the
surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always
governed by inner, hidden laws and it is only a matter of
discovering these laws". (Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, chapter 4.)
Their discovery does not, however, eliminate the conception
of the accidental. Rather does it reveal that the necessary
features of things manifest themselves through a series of
accidents, and that the accidental, on the other hand, is always
governed by the necessary.
Thus it is a historical necessity that in the development of
society capitalism should be superseded by socialism. Exactly
when and how this revolution takes place involves a series of
accidental circumstances, but the development of these circum­
stances is, in turn, governed by historical necessity.
Similarly in nature, the development of matter necessarily
follows a certain path, though exactly when and how in a
particular material system the different stages of develop­
ment are realised, or whether in particular cases they are
realised at all, depends upon accidental circumstances.
So, dealing with the inter-relation of accident and necessity
in nature, Engels wrote that the solar system "was produced
in a natural way by transformations of motion which are by
nature inherent in mo\'ing matter, and the conditions of which
therefore also must be reproduced by matter, even if only
after millions and millions of years and more or less by
chance but with the necessity that is also inherent in chance" .
And he understood the emergence of consciousness, as the
highest form of motion of matter, in the same way. "It is
the nature of matter to advance to the evolution of thinking
beings ; hence, too, this always necessarily occurs wherever the
conditions for it (not necessarily identical at all places and
times) are present." (Dialectics of Nature.)
Engels therefore concluded that "what is maintained to be
necessary is composed of sheer accidents, and the so-called
accidental is the form behind which necessity hides itself".
If the necessary is that which from the nature of the case
1 82
could not be otherwise, the accidental is that which could be
otherwise. Both aspects are always present in everything. In
general, it is certain overall characteristics of events, and the
overall character of their outcome, which are necessary. On
the other hand, the details, the particular features of individual
events, and the consequent detailed, particular features of their
outcome, are not necessary but accidental . It is in this sense
that "what is necessary is composed of accidents". It is
precisely in the accidental details that the inherently necessary
manifests itself, and, accidental in themselves, they are a t the
same time shaped and governed by what is necessary.
Necessity, Accident and Causality
The discovery of necessity in nature and society is bound up
with the discovery of causes and of the laws governing the
relationship of causes and effects. What is necessary is necessary
because of the operation of causes . If there were things which
came into being without any causes, if there were events which
took place absolutely at random and without regulation by
causal laws, then there could be no necessity discoverable in
such things and events.
So if a certain characteristic is a necessary characteristic of
certain events, and if a certain result is their necessary outcome,
this is consequent upon the nature of the causal processes
which operate in these events. To get to understand the
necessity inherent in events is to reach a profound knowledge
of the causal processes operating in them.
For example, if capitalism will necessarily be superseded by
socialism, this is because the causes of the transition from
capitalism to socialism are generated within the capitalist
system. If we profoundly know the nature of capitalism, then
we know that such causes are present and cannot but be
present and continue to operate in such a system.
At the same time, the knowledge of causes also enables us
to understand the accidental features of things.
The causes of socialism, for example, come into being and
operate within capi talism, and so the outcome of socialism is
1 83
known to be necessary. But the particul ar features of these
causes are accidental. There is no necessity about them. Thus
it is necessary that the working ciass should increase in numbers
and organisation as capitalism develops ; this is bound to
happen, and is one of the causes why capi talism will give rise
to socialism. But while the continued development of capital­
ism necessarily implies that there will be more workers and that
they will organise and eventually overthrow the system, it does
not necessaril y imply that, say, Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith will
join an organisation and play a prominent part as leaders of the
movement. There are bound to be leaders, but whether a
particular child of particular parents will become a leader
depends on many accidental factors. Such accidental factors,
however, are, in the aggregate and in the long run, bound to
have the result that leaders will arise.
Thus the operation of causality brings it about that there
is both necessity and accident in the world, and that th e
necessary manifests itself through the accidental.
It follows that it is wrong to assert, as has often been asserted,
that when a cause has been assigned for anything, then that
thing has thereby been shown to be necessary. It is equally
wrong to define the accidental as that which happens without a
cause. All events have causes, necessary events and accidents
alike. Merely to trace something back to i ts remote causes is
not to prove its necessity, for accident is at work right through­
out the chain of even ts. If something is necessary, this is not a
consequence of particular causes but of general laws.
The inter-relation of accident and necessity in events is
grasped, then, as a consequence of the advance of knowledge
from the external to the internal connections of things, from
appearance to reality, from superficial observation and correla­
tion of facts to investigation of the real dialectic of develop­
ment. Then ·we see that necessary consequences of the real
interconnections of things manifest themselves through a
series of accidental circumstances, and that accidental events
are conditioned and governed by an internal necessity and
contribute to bringing about a necessary outcome.
1 84
.Necessity and Freedom in Human Practice
We have considered the inter-relation of necessity and
accident and how both arise from the universal operation of
causality in nature and society. Now we shall consider the
bearing of these conclusions on practical life.
When we carry out practical activities, do we possess any
freedom in what we are doing or is it all necessarily determined
independently of our will ? This is the question we must now
answer. And as it is sometimes thought that necessity and
accident are incompatible opposites, such that where the one
is present the other must be absent, so the same thing is often
thought about necessity and freedom. It is thought that where
necessity is presen t there can be no freedom and that, on the
other hand, if we do act freely then we must somehow have
escaped from necessity.
If this idea were correct, then human freedom would be a n
illusion. All men's activities, like everything else in the world,
are in all respects governed by causal laws. The operations of
causality give rise to necessary characteristics of events and
determine their necessary outcome ; and this applies as much
to human actions as to anything else, so that men can never
make themselves independent of necessity in nature and
society. But it is wrong to oppose freedom and necessity as
incompatibles. On the contrary, necessity gives rise to freedom
and is its precondition.
The operation of natural and social laws and the necessities
consequent on this are independent of our will and of our
consciousness. Hence whatever we may think or desire or
decide, our actions are always determined in accordance with
the laws of nature in general and of our own nature in particu­
lar, and conform, in their carrying out and in their conse­
quences, to the dictates of necessity.
Man is himself a p art of n ature, and " the necessity of nature
is primary, and human will and mind secondary. The latter
must necessarily and inevitably adapt themselves to the
former" . (Lenin, .Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, chapter 3,
section 6.)
What characterises human practice, however, and dis1 85
tinguishes it from animal behaviour, is that men in the course
of their social practice gain knowledge of necessity, in the first
place of necessity in nature, and so learn to act on that
knowledge and to use it to produce intended aims, to realise
their own purposes.
This begins with the production process itself, in which
man "sets in motion the natural forces of his body in order
to appropriate nature's productions in a form adapted to his
own wants", and so "realises a purpose of his own". (Marx,
Capital, Volume I, chapter 7, section 1 .)
Consequently men are not, like the animals, constrained to
follow a predetermined pattern of behaviour. They do not, like
the animals, simply adapt themselves to their environment, but
also by their own volition adapt their environment to them­
selves. They make themselves free to seek and realise ends which
they themselves have conceived and willed. And in so doing
they also change themselves, change their own nature.
But the mastery over nature, which distinguishes man from
the animals, does not imply the least independence of man
from natural law and natural necessity. On the contrary, what
i t depends on is not the abrogation of natural laws and natural
necessity but knowledge and conscious utilisation of them.
Similarly, when men learn also to control and plan their
own social life in order to satisfy their material and cultural
requirements, this again does not imply that they have achieved
independence of the objective laws of society, of social neces­
sity. On the contrary, what it depends on is not the abrogation
of objective social laws but knowledge and conscious utilisation
of these laws-no t the ending of necessity in society but its
recognition, and the direction of social activity in accordance
with that recognition of necessi ty.
Men are therefore never, in any respect, in any of their
activities, independent of natural or social laws and of their
necessary consequences. It follows that in so far as they lack
knowledge of these laws and of their consequences, they are
constrained and unfree. These laws with their necessary con­
sequences then assert themselves as an alien power, with
unexpected or destructive effects, frustrating human purposes.
1 86
But in so far as men gain kn owle dge of these laws and kno..,... .
ledge of their necessary consequences, they can learn to utilise
th em for their own purposes.
Freedom does not consist in cutting loose from the operations
of causality but in understanding them. It does not depend
on getting rid of necessity but on getti ng knowledge of it.
There is, therefore, no incompatibility between the existence
of necessity and of human freedom. On the contrary, as we
h ave stated, necessity gives rise to freedom, namely, when
men gain knowledge of necessity and so can recognise it and
make th eir decisions in the light of real understanding of what
they ar e d oi ng .
What is mqre, as we have also stated, so far from being in
opposition to human freedom, the existence of ne ces s it y is its
precondition.
What would happen if there were no causal laws in nature
and society, if there were no objective necessity regulating the
course of events ? In that case, anything could ha pp en. \Ve
could not decide upon or carry out even the simplest actions,
for we cou ld never know what to do in order to secure the
results we intended. We would not possess even the freedom
to make a cup of tea, for example, for we would never know
whether the water would boil or, when we poured it into the
teapot, what the resulting brew woul d turn out like. Still less
could we carry out any more complex social activities, for
everythi n g would be in chaos. In fact, we could not exist at all.
It is only because th i ngs are subject to laws. because
obj ective necessity does exist in nature and society, that we are
able to decide upon definite actions and to carry them out.
This is the condition for human freedom. And that freedom
is realised i n proportion as we extend our knowledge and,
consequently, our ability to make d ecisions on the basis of
knowledge and so to carry them into effect.
Further, when we do know the laws governing things, then
we can carry out activities in relation to them which we could
not carry out without such knowledge. For example, people
often dreamed about flying, but until recently considered that
the laws of nature prevent ed them from being able to fly.
1 87
'When, however, we discovered the laws governing flying,
then we were able to construct the means of flight. ln many
such cases, knovv·lcdge of the laws which have given rise to
certai n limitations on our action enables us in practice to
transcend those limi tations.
Knowledge as the Afcmis to Human Freedom
But are not our own actions determined by various causes
and are they not therefore subject to an overriding necessity ?
How, then, can we be free ?
I t is true that we ourselves are the products of definite
conditions, would have been different had those conditions
been different, and act according to the necessity of our own
circumstances and our own nature. But this does not in the
least contradict the possibility of our being free agents.
\Vhatever WC do, there was some cause of our doing it. If
this cause was an external force of some kind, acting on us in
such a way as to make us do something without the in tervention
of any act of will on our part, then certainly in such a case
we are constrained and not free. For example, if someone in a
crowd pushes me in such a way that I push someone else, then
in this case I am not a free agent. The question of freedom
only comes in when we do things of our own volition-that is
to say, when the cause of what we do is our own act of will.
But how is our own will determined ? I f it is determined by
various external forces operating on and moulding our will
so as to effect purposes which are not our own, then we still
lack freedom. In that case we may have the illusion of acting
freely, but it is only an illusion. But lastly, if our will i s deter­
mined by our knowledge of the circumstances of our action
and of what must be done to realise a purpose which \Ve have
made our own, then in that case we not only feel free but really
are free.
Such a quality of free operation is not inherent in the will
but comes into being. And its coming into being and the extent
of its <levclopment follow in turn from definite causes which
come into operation in social life.
As a result of the operation of the laws of our own develop-
1 88
ment, as a resul t of the necessities of our own nature, we gain
knowledge of external things and of our own nature and
requirements, and then we act on the basis of such knowledge.
In proportion as this takes place, what we do follows from
our own conscious decisions based on knowledge of our own
requirements and of how to realise them. And so we are
free. What other sort of freedom do we expect or can we
desire ?
This, incidentally, is a point which was, in i ts essentials,
made clear long ago by the great materialist philosopher
Spinoza, when he pointed out that human actions, like all
other things, are determined by prior causes ; and that men
are free not when their actions take place without causes but
when their actions are determined by their knowledge of their
own requirements and of how to realise them.
"Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence
o f natural laws,'' wrote Engels, " but in the knowledge of
these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically
making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in
relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which
govern the bodily and mental life of men themselves-two
classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most
only in thought and not in reality. Freedom of the will there­
fore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with real
knowledge of the subject . . . . Freedom therefore consists of
the control over ourselves and over external nature which is
founded o n the knowledge of natural necessity." (Anti­
Diihring, Part I, chapter I I .)
Human knowledge, then, is an essential means to human
freedom. If knowledge depends on practice, the growth of
knowledge has also a transforming effect on practice. Practice
based on knowledge is another thing from practice not based
on knowledge. For in so far as we know the properties and laws
of things, we can in practice master them-make them subject
to us, instead of our being subject to them. The growth of
knowledge, a product of man's striving to master nature and
to organise his own social life, contributes step by step to the
realisation of that mastery and to the building of higher forms
1 89
of social organisation, to the realisation of the possibility of a
full and free life for all.
Freedom and Accident
We have already considered the linkage in nature and society
of necessity and accident, and have seen that necessity realises
itself through a series of accidents . To act freely on the basis
of knowledge further means, then, that we, as conscious agents,
must exercise practical control over these accidents, so as to
eliminate the accidental or chance element in the determina­
tion of the results of our activity and make those results fully
conform with our own intentions. In other words, the exercise
of our freedom of action means that, in carrying out activities
directed to a definite end, we, on the basis of our knowledge
of the laws of the subject of our action, exercise such con trol
over the subject that the oper a tions of chance are eliminated
in the determination of the result.
Thus while the realisation of freedom of human action does
not in any sense mean getting rid of necessity, it does, in a
certain sense, mean getting rid of accident, or eliminating
chance.
In carrying out an undertaking we should not, as every­
one knows, leave to chance anything which affects the success
of the undertaking. If we do, then the success of the under­
taking is jeopardised. ! f i t succeeds, that is due to luck and not
to judgment ; circumstances have brought about success for us,
and it was not we who by our own deliberate actions achieved
success for ourselves. But circumstances cannot generally be
relied on to be so favourable.
Those organising street-corner meetings, for example, some­
times forget to arrange for anyone to bring the platform along.
They leave it to chance, and so occasionally find themselves
without a platform. Sometimes they may even be withou t a
speaker for the same reason . Naturally enough, anyone who
organises anything has the job of taking all the factors affecting
the success of the undertaking into account and leaving none
of them to chance.
The elementary characteristics of free action, namely, know-
1 90
ledge of necessity and elimination of chance, are exemplified
in the labour process, the fundamental process of human
activity.
In the labour process man by his work, using the instru­
ments of labour, operates on the subject of the work to effect a
designed alteration in it. To do this he has to know and reckon
with the necessary characteristics of the suLj ect of work, and
he has also to eliminate the effects of chance on the subject of
work.
The more large-scale and ambitious grow the undertakings
of human labour, the more does man succeed in eliminating
the factor of chance in his undertakings.
This is a very i mportant consideration in any engineering
work. To build a bridge, for instance, the engineers base their
plans on their knowledge of the essential nature of the location
and of the materials employed, and on a reckoning with the
various chance factors to which the structure may be subjected.
An example of failure to reckon with chance was afforded, not
many years ago, by the sea defences on the east coast of
England. Those who were responsible for these defences had
omitted to reckon with the chance that an exceptionally high
tide might coincide with an exception ally strong east wind.
When this chance coincidence took place, the sea burst through
the defences. But if sea defences, or any other engineering
works, are properly planned, then such chances are reckoned
with and their effects eliminated .
The Elements of Conscious Control
By considering such examples we can draw some further
conclusions about the inter-relation of necessity, accident and
human freedom.
To say that freedom entails the elimination of chances does
not mean, of course, that by the exercise of freedom we some­
how contrive to do away with the linkage of accident and
necessity. The operation of accident or chance, and its linkage
with necessity, is an objective fact, a universal feature of events
in both nature and society, which we have to reckon with and
to which we have to adapt our actions. It exists independently
191
of ourselves and we can by no means do away with or alter
it. What we have to do to realise freedom of action is, through
knowledge of necessity, to bring a whole process, including
the chances inherent in it, under our control and so direct
it to an end decided by ourselves. So eliminating chance means
controlling it, so as to direct its operation and to render the
outcome no longer accidental. This is done by means of
( a) exercising a direct control over chance factors and (b) exer­
cising foresight and taking precautions to cope with them in so
far as they remain outside direct control. This is why a socialist
economic plan, for example, must always include the building
up of "reserves".
One aspect of foresight in relation to chance is expressed in
the saying, "Heads I win, tails you lose". If such a situation can
be brought into being, then I have ensured that I win. If the
outcome depends on the accident of the spin of a coin, then
it is decided independen tly of man's volition and not by man's
volition. But if it is arranged that whatever chances, some
suitable precaution has been contrived to bring about the
desired outcome, then it is man's volition that decides the
outcome. If people are making bets, this is called cheating ;
but we do not consider it cheating in relation to nature.
Another aspect of eliminating chance is illustrated by
spinning a coin in which we have been careful to introduce a
bias.
We have seen that necessity realises itself through a series
of accidents, and also that accidental events are governed by
an internal necessity. When this point is grasped in a practical
way, and when we are equipped with knowledge of the laws
of the subject of our activities, then we are in a position to
reckon with and control the accidental factors inherent in the
subject, so that we ourselves direct them to a necessary out­
come in accordance with our intentions.
This further requires that our knowledge should be not only
knowledge of the inevitable but also of the probable. In rela­
tion to a given process, for instance, we must know not only
what effect universally follows from what cause, so that by
bringing the cause into being we can ensure the corresponding
1 92
effect ; but we must also know the probabilities of various
causes coming into operation and of various effects following.
This enables us to judge how to act in order to control the
whole process, including its accidental features.
Judgments of probability express our expectation of the
occurrence of accidents. According to some theories, proba­
bility is purely subjective, in the sense that a judgment of
probability is an expression of nothing but our own subjective
uncertainty or lack of knowledge. But on the contrary, the idea
of probability reflects an objective reality--or rather, one
aspect of objective reality-namely, the operation of accidental
causes in a whole sequence of events or in an aggregate of
instances. This is just as much an objective reality as the
operation of a single cause on a single occasion, which is not a
subj ect of probability.
In proportion as we know the probabilities inherent in
events and can arrive at correct judgments of probability, we
are able the better to reckon with all the factors operating in
the course of a whole process, including the accidental factors,
and so to direct the whole process towards a definite end.
'
To sum up.
Freedom is control over ourselves and over external nature
which is founded on knowledge of necessity. Such knowledge
also requires that we know what chance factors enter into the
process with which we are concerned, and the probabilities
characterising their operation, so that we can (a) control the
operation of chance and (b) take precautions to meet its
operation in so far as we do not control it, as a result of which
the whole process is directed to a desired end.
"Chance is only the one pole of a relation whose other pole
is called 'necessity' ", wrote Engels. " . . . The more a social
activity, a series of social processes, becomes too powerful for
men's conscious control and grows above their heads, and the
more it appears a matter of pure chance, then all the more
surely within ,this chance the laws peculiar to it and inherent
in it assert themselves as if by natural necessity." ( The Origin
of the Family, etc., chapter g.)
When events in which we are concerned thus take place
1 93
without our conscious control over them, then the outcome is
determined by a natural necessity realised through a series of
accidents. But in proportion as we do achieve a conscious
control over events, it is we ourselves who consciously deter­
mine their course, by acting on our knowledge of the laws of
such events and of the factors influencing the outcome.
Chapter Fourteen
THE REALISATION OF FREEDOM
The Winning of Freedom
OST of the theoretical difficulties people run into when
thinking of the problem of freedom result from thinking
that freedom is an innate quality of the will. But freedom is
not an innate quality of the will, nor is it any sort of gift or
endowment which God or nature has bestowed upon man . I t
i s something which i s won-and which i s won gradually, bit
by bit, created and realised in the course of ages of human
social activity.
J. J. Rousseau began his book on The Social Contract with
the famous words, " Man is born free". But man is not born
free. On the contrary, man is born with no freedom whatever,
but is born as a creature determined by circumstances
independent of his will. But thanks to his social life and the
laws of its development, he gradually develops in social
practice those capacities which make him become free. This
he does in struggle with external nature, in social and class
struggle, and also in individual struggle. He creates for himself
and wins for himself such freedom as he possesses, and so
he can never possess more than he has created and won for
himself.
Freedom is not an innate quality, nor is it an "all or none"
affair. Metaphysicians argue that either we are free or else we
are not free. This is to forget that we may be free in some
respects but not in others, and that we may be more or
less free.
In the argument between voluntarism, which says that the
will is not determined, and determinism, which says that the
M
1 95
will is aetermined, Marxism takes the determinist side, since
every act of will has a cause. But the important question is
not that of whether our actions are determined-since there
is no doubt that they are determined-but of how and by
what they are determined-by external causes or by our own
knowledge of our needs and of how to satisfy them. When
the question is put like this, then it is evident that freedom
is a matter of degree. We make ourselves free only in so far
as we bring it about that our own conscious decision based
on knowledge is the thing which determines what we do and
achieve. But such freedom can seldom if ever be absolute.
The more it is our own decision based on knowledge which
determines our actions and their outcome, and the less they
are decided for us by other factors, the greater is the degree
offreedom of action which we have achieved.
Freedom of the Individual and Freedom in Society
Freedom is something which is realised by the individual. It
is not mankin d in general, or society, that is free, but
individuals who are free.
But in the first place, the individual realises freedom only
through society. The means to freedom is knowledge, and this
is social. The freedom of the individual depends on the
acquirements of the society to which he belongs, on the
education and assistance which society has afforded him, and
also on the extent to which, in society, he can co-operate with
others and get them to co-operate with him.
In the second place, therefore, the individual attains to that
degree of freedom which has been attained by and is permitted
to him by the society to which he belongs. The scope of his
freedom is dependent on the acquirements of his society, but
it is also dependent on how far society will permit him to share
it and make use of those acquirements. The potential scope
of his freedom is as great as the existing social knowledge and
the means discovered to utilise it. At the same time, his actual
enjoyment of this potential freedom may be denied to him
by limitations placed by society on his own acquirements and
his own actions .
1 96
The freedom of individuals, then, depends upon the positive
acquirements of society and the opportunities society affords
to individuals to utilise those acquirements. This being so,
individuals struggle together-both with one another and
against one another--for a higher d egree of freedom. And they
thereby raise the degree of freedom possessed by all individuals
and realised by them in society.
It follows, then, that an individual develops as a free agent
in the course of his life, corresponding to the education,
incentives and opportunities afforded him by society. And
similarly, men in society have developed human freedom in
the course of social evolution . Mankind gradually advances on
the road of greater freedom of action . This freedom of action
is, indeed, a measure or criterion of social progress.
The Strugglefor Freedom
I n primitive societies, people's freedom is restricted mainly
by their lack of mastery over nature. They are very much at
the mercy of external nature, and the savage's existence is to a
very great extent determined for him by external conditions, as
is the case with animals.
As civilisation has developed, so has people's mastery over
nature developed. Hence their freedom in this respect has
become less and less restricted, more and more enlarged. But a
new restriction has come into operation. In civilised societies
hitherto, people's freedom has been restricted by social cir­
cumstances, and in particular by the oppression of one class
by another. Hence as the freedom associated with the mastery
over nature has increased, so has it been o ffset by class
oppression. This means that people have been exploited and
coerced, and at the same time have been denied the oppor­
tunity of utilising for their own interests the knowledge and
power which exist in society.
If people are to be free, then neither in their economic
activities nor in any other of their activities should they be
constrained to work or to act or to think contrary to their own
interests, to the detriment of their own essential requirements,
by external pressure and for the benefit of others. And they
1 97
should not be denied the opportunity of utilising all society
offers for the satisfaction of their requirements. Such condi­
tions are a negation of people's freedom. Their prevalence
hitherto has been due to the division of society into exploiting
and exploited classes.
Metaphysical philosophers have carefully separated the
question of the so-called freedom of the will from the question
of economic and political freedom, and this separation has
helped them to mislead people about both. But in fact these
are not separate questions but two aspects of the one question
of men's struggle for freedom. In a society in which one class
exploits another, the main part of the struggle for freedom
is the struggle to throw off the existing forms of exploitation
and oppression. And it is in this struggle that men act freely,
make themselves free and enlarge the frontiers of human
freedom. A passive slave is simply a slave, but a slave in revolt
is acting as a free man even though he still wears his chains.
Such people are pioneers of human freedom.
It follows that, in class society, freedom and the winning
of freedom has always a class background to it. And the con­
cept of freedom has therefore a class significance. In the first
place, the freedom which has been won and realised. at any
stage, and also the lack of freedom, is always the freedom or
lack of freedom of definite classes. In the second place, the
freedom or lack of freedom of one class differs in concrete ways
from the freedom or lack of freedom of another class ; and
consequently different classes also have different ideas of what
constitutes freedom.
Human freedom has been constantly advanced by the class
struggle, and various classes, striving to realise their own aims
and to make themselves free to pursue those aims, have
advanced the freedom of people generally from one stage to
another. Each stage is realised as a result of struggle against the
restrictions on freedom placed by a definite system of class rule,
and in turn produces its own restrictions on freedom.
Thus, for example, feudal rule and serfdom were ended as a
result of the struggle led by the bourgeoisie against feudal
restrictions. This was a step forward in men's freedom. It
1 98
brought with it new forms of exploitation and oppression, but
it also brought new advances, the winning of broader political
rights and liberties, new and more powerful organisation,
advances in knowledge and culture. At the same time, i t has
meant in practice different things for the two main classes of
capitalist society. The capitalist class is concerned to maintain
its rule and increase i ts profits. The working class, on the
other hand, is confronted with the task of getting rid of
capitalist rule and capitalist exploitation, and of using the
freedom which it has already won in order to advance to a
higher order of freedom.
Similarly, restrictions of freedom are experienced differently
by the d i fferent classes. Every system of exploitation imposes
definite forms of coercion and oppression on the exploited ;
and the working class today, for example, experiences this. At
the same time, each ruling class, which seems to itself to have
realised its own freedom by exploiting others, finds in practice
that its freedom is largely illusory. The bourgeoisie, for
example, find themselves enslaved by the laws of their own
system, and must go on accumulating capital, competing with
one another and fighting with one another to the end.
To a poor family today, debating whether to exercise their
free will in paying the rent or buying some food, it often seems
that a rich capitalist is far freer than they are. They do not
realise the extent to which the unfortunate man is the slave of
his own business, suffering high blood pressure and perpetual
worry and frustration . If they did, simple humanity might
prompt them to set him free from these cares, and do them­
selves a bit of good too, by taking over his business from him
and allowing him the freedom of honest work. Members of
various exploiting classes have often believed that riches and
power wou ld give them complete freedom. But even their own
philosophers have sadly but truly pointed out to them that
riches and power enslave their possessors at the same time as
they are engaged in enslaving others.
From Lack of Freedom to Freedom
The struggle for freedom means in essence people's struggle
1 99
to be able to satisfy their own requirements, material and
cultural, for which is needed knowledge of those requirements
and of how to satisfy them, and the power to effect that
satisfaction.
When in socialist society people, having already greatly
expanded their mastery over nature, bring their own social
organisation under their own conscious control by virtue of
the social ownership of the means of production, then a
decisive step forward is realised in human freedom. In socialist
society, when there is no exploitation of man by man and when
the means of production are common property and are utilised
for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of every indi­
vidual, people begin less to struggle for freedom then to enjoy
it and !earn how to go forward to exercise it to the full. And
when in communist society people finally do away with all
traces of the subordination of people to their own means of
production and products, then people will have attained to the
highest degree of freedom we can envisage. Then, as Engels
put it, "for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally
marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges
from mere ammal conditions of existence into really human
ones . . . . It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity
to the kingdom of freedom". (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,
chapter 3 .)
We can say that people started off from mere animal con­
ditions of existence, but began to create conditions of freedom
when they first began social production-that is to say, when
they began to use tools and implements to change things, in
accordance with the objective laws of nature, with conscious
intent to satisfy their own requirements.
In producing, people have entered into relations of produc­
tion, and in the course of ages of struggle to satisfy their own
ever-growing requirements they have continually advanced
their knowledge and consequently their control over their own
affairs and over external nature. This struggle has advanced
through a series of stages, in each of which people have changed
their relations of production to correspond with the develop­
ment of their forces of production, and in each of which
200
different cl asses have enlarged their own sphere of free activity
only at the cost of new forms of domination of one class over
another and of new forms of subjection to the objective laws
of their own social organisation . At length the class struggle
has reached that stage in which the struggle of the exploited
class for its own emancipation will finally emancipate society
a t large from all exploitation and oppression, and so will bring
about conditions in which men's own social organisation comes
under their own conscious, social con trol and becomes the
result of their own free action. Then, too, the labour process,
by which men began their j ourney to freedom but which
became a process of enslavement, will bP.come the conscious
means by which they achieve the satisfaction of all their needs ;
and by limiting the hours of labour each will be able freely to
develop and enjoy the exercise of all his capacities.
In this way, by a process which is entirely law governed,
which is determined at every point by the operation of obj ec·
tive laws, people gradually emerge from a condi tion of
complete lack of freedom, when what they do and achieve is
determined not by their own conscious decision but by their
circumstances, and gradually win freedom, attaining at
length a condition in which individually and collectively they
can consciously decide their own fate on the basis of knowledge
of their own needs and of conscious control over the conditions
for their satisfaction.
Morality
The stages of the evolution of freedom are closely connected
with the evolution of morality, o r ethics. The development of
morals is, in fact, one side or aspect of the development of
freedom, and the various stages of the development of moral
ideas are so many stages of the evolution of human freedom.
Many moral philosophers have observed that morality is an
expression of freedom and that the moral life has meaning
only in so far as people are acting freely. And of course, if all
our actions were merely the determined consequences of
external causes, then there would be no sense in calling them
right or wrong, or in saying that we had a duty to do one
201
thing rather than another, since in that case we could not help
what we did. In this, these phiiosophcrs were evidently right.
What they did not obserYe is that freedom is something which
develops socially on the basis of the activities of definite
classes, and that the same is true of morals.
Human morality is not an expression of some eternal moral
law decreed by heaven and somehow revealed to mankind ;
nor is it, as Kant imagined, the expression of a "categorical
imperative" inherent in the human will ; but it is a natural
product of men's social organisation. Since men live in society,
they necessarily evolve a moral code to regulate their mutual
relations and activities in society. This assumes in relation to
individuals the appearance of an externally imposed and
morally binding force, because of its character of a social
regulator of conduct. It assumes the peculiar character of a
" moral" force : we do not have· to act rightly, but we "ought"
to do so.
Morality consists of certain standards and principles of
conduct, and says that certain things ought to be done and
other things ought not to be done, irrespective of whether
individuals want to do them or not, or actually do them or not.
The whole sense of moral terms, like "good'', "bad", "ought",
and so on, is contained in the assertion of standards which do
not depend on the particular desires, impulses and actions of
individuals. And such standards come to be conceived, and
necessarily come to be conceived, precisely because of the
social necessity of regulating individual conduct.
Of course, it is one thing to conceive and recognise such
standards and another thing to operate them. Generally
speaking, every society evolves various forms of sanctions to
teach and persuade people to do what they ought, ranging
from mild praise or blame to systems of reward and punish­
ment-the latter, however, being mostly reserved for actions
directly involving security of life or property. But in societies
containing class antagonisms, and where people profit at
others' expense and compete with one another, a large part of
morality invariably assumes the form of something which is
preached to others but which one tries to evade onesel£
202
Morali ty is inseparable from hypocrisy. Finally, when moral
s tandards are not merely often evaded but are placed in doubt
and ignored altogether, and when the various moral sanctions
vacillate and weaken, that is one sign that the social system
concerned is breaking up and changing.
The whole of social in tercourse is conditioned by and based
on the production relations of society. And so morality, as a
regulator of social intercourse, is in every society the product
of definite production relations. I t reflects them and changes
with them, and each class in society evolves its own moral ideas
corresponding to its peculiar class position.
"Men consciously or unconsciously derive their moral id eas
in the last resort from the practical relations on which their
class posi tion is based, " wrote Engels, "from the economic
relations in which they carry on produc tion and exchanze. . . .
All former moral theories are the product, in the last analysis,
of the economic stage which society had reached at the
particular epoch." (Anti-Diihring, Part I, chapter 9.)
This being so, it is natural that moral ideas should in many
ways differ as between different social systems and different
classes. At the same time, we should expect to find, as we do
find, that there is always something, and often a great deal, in
common between them. For the different social systems and
classes represent "different stages of the same historical
development and have therefore a common historical back­
ground, and for that reason alone they n ecessarily have much
in common. Even more. In similar or approximately similar
stages of economic development moral theories must of
necessity be more or less in agreement". For example, ·�from
the moment when private property in movable objects
developed, in all societies in which this property existed there
must be this moral law in common : Thou shalt not steal".
(Engels, Anti-Dilhring, Part I , chapter g.)
The ethics of any social group is tl1c expression of the
concrete nature of their freedom and their aspirations for
freedom-which has its basis in the place they occupy in social
production and their relationship to the means of production.
In so far as such a group may remain under the influence and
203
sway of some other group, they may accept the moral ideas of
that other group-often to their own detriment and to the
advantage of the other, since it serves to keep them in sub­
jection. But in so far as they become conscious of and begin
to struggle for their own aims, begin to play an active and not
merely a passive part in the process of social change, begin to
assert their own freedom, they develop their own morality in
the process.
Why does freedom entail morals ? It is because freedom in
action is the very opposite of acting on impulse or because of
external compulsion . In so far as people act on impulse or
because of external compulsion, they are the very reverse of
free but are constrained by chance or external causes. People
act freely when they themselves, deliberately and knowingly,
determine their course of action. Hence in realising and
exercising their freedom people create their maxims or
principles of action, which constitute their moral ideas. Their
morals then correspond to the conditions and aims of their
struggle, as determined on the basis of their ac tual conditions
of material life. At the same time, they create institutions and
social sanctions which, in this respect, serve as the exiernal
embodiment and defence of their morals and of the kind and
degree of freedom of action which they have attained or are
striving for.
The modem working class, for example, has created, and is
creating, its own morality, which receives particular expression
in such institutions as the trade union movement and the
Communist Party-a morality of solidarity and of mutual
assistance, and of putting the common struggle before the
particular and short-term interests of the individual . Bourgeois
morality differs from this in many ways. If many working
people remain under the influence of bourgeois morali ty-or
what this often comes to today, bourgeois lack of morality­
that simply means that they remain relatively passive slaves of
the capitalist system, although they may themselves think and
be assured by their employers that they are behaving with
great strength of mind and independence.
Thus if a worker urged to take part in his trade union
204
struggle replies that he will not do so because everyone should
look after himself, that simply means that he has imbibed the
individualistic elements ofbourgeois morality, which have been
pumped into him by capitalist propaganda. It also means that
he does not in fact know how to look after himself, since the
ideas evolved by the capitalists for looking after their own
affairs are not suited to the en tirely opposite purpose of assist­
ing the workers.
In class-divided society, morality is always and necessarily
class morality. It expresses precisely the requirements, the
social consciousness and the measure and kind of freedom
of the various classes. And when a class is going down, its
morality goes down with it, and gives way to a different
morality. We can say that that morality is higher which serves
to advance society a step further on the road of material
progress and freedom. These two things are inseparable, since
in struggling for more freedom people realise their material
progress, and in struggling for material progress they realise
more freedom. To live more fully is the goal of all free and
active life, and this alone provides the objective criterion for
judging what morality is higher.
At present, no morality is higher than that which is the
expression of the class struggle of the working class. If those
who bemoan the decline of morals in capitalist society want
to find examples of moral principle, this is where they should
look. They do not do so because they are both ashamed and
frightened.
"Our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of
the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived
from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat", wrote
Lenin. " . . . Morality is what serves to destroy the old
exploiting society and to unite all the toilers around the
proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society.
Communist morality is the morality which serves this struggle,
which unites the toilers . . . " ( The Tasks of the Youth Leagues.)
When class antagonisms are abolished in socialist and com­
munist society, then morality does become human and not
class morality.
.
"As society has hitherto moved in class antagonism, morality
was always a class morality", wrote Engels. " I t has either
justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class,
or, as soon as the oppressed class has become powerful enough,
it has represented the revolt against this domination and the
future interests of the oppressed. That in this process there
has on the whole been progress in morality . . . cannot be
doubted . But we have not yet passed beyond class morality. A
really human morality which transcends class antagonisms and
their legacies in thought becomes possible only at a stage of
society which has not only overcome class contradictions but
has even forgotten them in practical life." (Anti-Dilhring,
Part I, chapter 9 . )
Such morality expresses the principles and maxims o f free
action in "an association in which the free development of
each is the condition for the free· development of all . " (Marx
and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, chapter 2.) I t is
deduced from nothing else than knowledge of human require­
ments and of how to satisfy them. And in conditions where
people have deliberate, conscious control over the means of
satisfying their requirements, it is the expression of their
freedom and the principle guiding their free activi ties. The
ethics of the freedom struggle of the working class, which
does not reject but incorporates all that is positive and durable
in the whole moral evolution of mankind, prepares the way
and lays the basis.
Although human morality does not yet exist, we can perhaps
guess at some of its characteristics. I t is not dogmatic, but
scientific and self-cri tical . It does not encourage self­
righteousness and moral spluttering and frothing, but is calm
and reasonable. For it, immoral behaviour is simply anti-social
behaviour due to weakness and lack of education, and i ts aim
is not to punish but to reform and educate. It is in all respects
kind and humane, and values above everything else the free
development and happiness of the human individual.
We can conclude that if we should oppose the philosophy
which says that morals are decreed by heaven, we should also
oppose the philosophy, no less common today in bourgeois
206
circles, which says that j udgments of good and bad are simply
expressions of emotional attitudes and can have no basis in
reality. If socialists are asked, why do you consider this good
and that bad, they need neither preach sermons nor shrug
their shoulders. Socialist morality is founded on appreciation
of the real conditions and real requirements of the actual
freedom struggle of mankind.
R E AD I N G L I ST
The following are the principal sources in the wntmgs of
Marx, Engels and Lenin dealing with problems of the theory
of knowledge which have been consulted and quoted in this
volume :
MARX :
Capital
Critique of Political Economy, Preface
The Poverty of Philosophy
Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts
M A R X AND E N GE L S :
The German Ideology
Correspondence
ENGELS :
Anti-Duhring
Ludwig Feuerbach
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Introduction
Dialectics of Nature
L E N IN :
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
Karl Marx
Tasks of the Touth Leagues
Philosophical Notebooks
POL I T I C A L S C I E N C E
M A U R I C E C O R N FORTH
T H E T H E O R Y OF K N O W L E D G E
T h i s vo l u m e , t h e t h i rd of t h re e o n D i a l e c t i c a l M a t e r i a l i s m ,
o ut l i n e s t h e M a rx i st a p p ro a c h to s o m e of t h e f u n d a m e n t a l
q ue s t i o n s of p h i l os o p h y : t h e re l a t i o n of m a tte r a n d m i n d ,
l a n g u a g e a n d t h o u g h t , i d e a s a n d rea l i ty, a n d n e c e s s i ty a n d
f r e e d o m . T h e fi rst o f t h i s s e r i e s
i s Materialism and the
Dialec tical Me thod, a n d the s e c o n d , Historical Ma terialism .
Toge t h e r t h ey p re s e n t a c o m p re h e n s ive v i e w of D i a l e c t i c a l
M a t e r i a l i s m i n n o n -te c h n i c a l t e r m s f o r t h e ge n e r a l rea d e.r,
b u t e a c h c a n be read i n d e p e n d e n t ly.
S E L E C T E D N EW W O R L D PA P E R BA C K S
I N T R O D U C T I O N T O M A R X I S M b y E m i l e B u rn s
(01 0 1 )
T H E O P E N P H I L O S O P H Y A N O T H E O P E N S O C I ETY
by M a u r i c e C o rnforth
(0142)
P O L I T I C A L E C O N O M V : A M a rx i s t Text b o o k by J o h n E a t o n
(01 57)
S O C I A L I S M : U T O P I A N A N D S C I E N T I F I C by F r e d e r i c k E n g e l s
(01 9 1 )
I M P E R I A L I S M : T H E H I G H E ST STA G E O F C A P I TA L I S M
by V . I . L e n i n
(0098)
STATE A N D R E V O L U T I O N by V. I. L e n i n
(01 96 )
W H A T IS TO B E D O N E? by V. I. L e n i n
(02 1 8)
W A G E - LA B O R A N O C A P I T A L by K a r l M a rx
(0470)
S E L E C T E D W O R K S OF M A R X A N D E N G E LS
T H E W O M A N Q U E S T I O N by M a rx , E n g e l s , L e n i n , S t a l i n
(0184)
R E AD E R IN M A R X I S T P H I L O S O P H Y
H . S e l s a m a n d H . M a rt e l , e d s .
(0167)
D Y N A M I C S OF S O C I A L C H A N G E : A R e a d e r i n S o c i a l S c i e n c e
H . S e l s a m , et a l , eds.
(0264)
M AT E R I A L I S M A N D TH E D I A L E C T I C A L M ET H O D
b y M a u r i c e C o rnforth
(0326)
H I STO R I C A L M AT E R I A L I S M by M a u r i c e C o rnforth
(0327)
T H E T H E O R Y OF K N O W L E D G E by M a u r i c e C o rnforth
(0328)
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